Lance Armstrong Retires

Lance Armstrong listens to his longtime manager Johan Bruyneel, after crashing during the Tour of California, 20 May 2010. Photograph: Ken Conley/EPA (The Guardian)

 

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First Draft

Around the block, the world denied

memories tempered by the dignity

of a strong quiet coffee

becoming history’s first draft

 

True believers of a more complicated

myth may kneejerk yet follow,

sneaking some end to brand

everyone else

in an era of entourage

 

On the slope of retirement

a racing temperament

saw it on the wires

needed to -

timing is -

bike deserves -

all performances are distorted by talent

an old arduous moment

small talk, charm

better about to break

Bradley Manning Is UK Citizen And Needs Protection, Government Told

Bradley Manning is being held in a military jail, charged with the unauthorised use and disclosure of classified information. Photograph: AP (The Guardian)

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Stretching

 

Nationality is like an elastic band

the massive pressure held in

a trove of births and deaths

secret marriages passed under

crossed paths, the year stretches

(or was stripped)

to a 23 cell day

held on against the shackled minutes.

Chernobyl To Become Tourism Hot-Spot

Visitors will be able to take in views of the nuclear plant, as well as towns and villages that were abandoned in the disaster's aftermath

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Chernobyl

 

A giant melted cap down

belatedly sprawling paths

thrown to plant and animal life;

disasters draw tonnes of beauty.

 

Forbidden zones will

be open

for guided tours,

not the slightest risk to health.

 

 

Crowds swoon over magma.

Yes, you read that right.

 

Human activity will flourish

as never before.

 

Moscow Airport Bomb Kills Dozens

Members of the Federal Security Bureau outside Domodedovo airport. Photograph: Denis Sinyakov/Reuters

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The floor aside

A volatile capacity

for shouting

appears in the show

that they put on

them swept along

on a wave of heat

they touched a hub,

a frontier flung

on a fairytale heap.

Soft in time

a daily term

bent my legs

turned round

and returned.

 

Jean-Marie Le Pen hands reins over to daughter (a pantoum)

Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter, Marine, thank their supporters at the end of Front National's conference in Tours. Photograph: Patrick Durand/Getty Images

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The Singing Cup

 

Farewell said the old thuggish wing

Veer right on the rousing front

She, poorly posing her singing cup

He, losing his lead on foreign roots

 

Veer right on the rousing front

A purely cosmetic change

She sidesteps the peddler with a clout

She with his hands on the reins

 

A purely cosmetic change

Born on a kinder face

The street is praying for hate

To be punched by a singing of same

 

Born on a kinder face

Softer subtleties losing sight

Last week’s war is next year’s threat

Farewell said the old thuggish wing

Brisbane floods leave city centre deserted as thousands flee

The town of Theodore, north of Brisbane, is one of many communities devastated after weeks of torrential rain (photo: www.bbc.co.uk)

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Dream Toll

 

My girlfriend, shoulder high, spills into a river

paddles people’s homes through a ghost town

 

she is a swollen snake swallowing up dry ground

come. Who will see her worst bits

 

abandoned on a murky sunrise?

We people bedded danger and deserted

 

the surreal barricades of heartbreak.

We never heeded the electricity rising

 

we waded through plastic and traffic lights

missing the low-focus sirens across a tin stream.

 

Worse, we expected to balance our mood

on a mooring, to shelter our bodies from bad dreams.

Italian man shot in the head sneezes out bullet and lives (two Haikus)

Darco Sangermano sneezed out a .22 calibre bullet

 

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Eyes and Nose

 

I

A spirit life is

wandering behind his eye

a stray firecracker

 

II

miraculously

the bleeding sky sneezed fireworks

on a damaged skull