Brian Bilston: The Incidence of Oxymorons

Alone together at last,
I told her how I thought that –
in my unbiased opinion –
the incidence of oxymorons
in the English language

had been growing smaller.

That’s old news, she said,
claiming it had been the case
for almost exactly ten years.
Strongly-held convictions
were thrown across the room.
Things got pretty ugly.

But this felt strangely normal;
ours was a bittersweet relationship,
a tragi-comic civil war
of violent agreements
and deafening silences,
going nowhere.