Two poems by Peter Howard

Uninteresting Numbers

That there are no uninteresting natural numbers
can easily be proved by induction, thus:

if every number up to (say) n
is interesting, then if n+1 were uninteresting it would be the first such number, which would (of course) make it interesting.

Therefore, we only have to prove
the existence of one interesting number, and 'one' will do, for reasons which are too uninteresting to recapitulate.

There you have it. But the number of
possible poems is so large as to be uninteresting, whichever way you calculate it.
Which is an interesting, and reassuring paradox

for those who have an interest in such things.

Heather...

Heather, getting ready to go out...

Five minutes to off:
"Nearly ready!"
emerging, naked from the shower.

Heather, dancing...

blue lights on the hi-fi stack
closed, deep-red curtains
gas fire glowing

pink t-shirt
short black skirt
bare feet

hair, the mirror's
gold frame.

Heather at the computer...

a rattle of short machine-gun bursts:
these words are going to stay
processed.

Heather, washing dishes...

A disreputable army of crocks
undergoes make-or-break training.

A pristine display-team
forms a precarious mountain.

Heather, bathing...

1) pink curve through bubble mountain
2) the Kraken stirs
3) small tsunami
4) a damp spot on the kitchen ceiling

Heather, sleeping...

hair scattered across crimson pillows
head turned sideways
the tension vanished

Heather, getting ready to go out... (reprise)

Ok, I exaggerated.
Ten minutes.

Peter Howard was educated at Hertford College, Oxford and now lives in Cambridge, UK, where he is a telecommunications systems design consultant (whatever that means) for Simoco Europe Ltd, and a poet (whatever that means). He's written a booklet of poems called Low Probability of Racoons, had poems published in magazines, on the WWW, and read on television. Peter writes an Internet poetry column for Poetry Review, and occasionally acts as guide for those wanting to find out about poetry and literature on the Internet. He is a Section Leader in CompuServe's Poetry Forum, and also the Official Web Watcher for the Poetry Society.

Two Poems