So it’s about time to clean through the garbage. Here’s some detritus that has gathered, for one reason or another, in the drain. Mostly in response to prompts or challenges or whatever, or in response to other people’s responses to whatever. So …. whatever.

**

You are looking at me

And you see

Me looking back

Through a little crack

In my imperfection

Hints of faded beauty

Drift in your direction

And after brief inspection

Your duty as a man

Is to put the picture back together

If you can

To reassemble pieces

That resemble a woman

But if you can’t

You shan’t

Waste a thought

And the risk of being caught

By that mirage in your head

And instead

Turn away

To stay

In the shadows

Of  your virility

And let me fade

To  invisibility

**

 

So dark out here. It smells like fear

Music beats. Guns on the streets

And sheets of rain keep falling

I’m looking back, along the track

From where my ghost is calling

Don’t know what I miss the most

Overdosed on what’s behind

The streets down here are lined with gold

And now there’s no more gold to find

Whatever happened to those days way back?

When the world was safe, and seemed worth saving?

The future just ignores my gaze

And from the past that ghost keeps waving

 **

“Look,” said the Doc, “face the facts

If it looks like a duck then it quacks

Your calorie count

Is a staggering amount

You have got to stop eating those snacks”

I said to the Doc, “listen here

It’s either the snacks or a beer

And by way of an answer

I already have cancer

So really, there’s nothing to fear.

**

Darling I have no excuse

The fact is that I’m not of much use

Aside from now and then some fun

I’m not much good to anyone

And looking back I think you’ll find

Your eyes were shut. Your love was blind

And thus with hindsight, clarity

You’ll wonder what you saw in me

And love, as I will come to see

Does not extend to charity

So listen, as your friends explain

That for you there’s nought to gain

In spending even one more night

With this fellow parasite

**

I suppose I will go if I must

Ash to ashes, and so dust to dust

One cold winter’s morning

I’ll go without warning

In search of a God I can trust

**

Are you still with me? Really? OK. You asked for it ….

Actually, where’s Chel? She used to run a terrible poetry contest which I always narrowly lost. But you’d all agree that I’m really kicking some terrible goals now …

**

I’m trying, sweetheart

To be yours

Despite my poverty, my flaws

My odour

Yes it’s all about

But, darling let me sort that out

 

I did my nails

Applied Cologne

Called you on the telephone

I’ll find some money

Notes of green

I’ll learn stuff from a magazine

 

But just for now

What might you say?

Might you love me anyway?

I’m poor, for sure

But smell alright

So might I lay with you tonight?

**

Love crashes through the door

Like a home invasion

An unequal equation

Wanting more

Than you can give

But can’t live

Without

So you shout

“go away!”

But here to stay

Is love.

 

An infection

That escapes detection

Spreads through your head

Onto the bed

Where you and me

Instead

Will share the key

So no invasion. No limitation

An invitation

From above

Is love

**

Enough. If you’ve read this far I applaud you. I thank you. Most of all I pity you. Come on. Get a life. 

But speaking of getting a life … here’s a note I sent to a trout fisherman. I don’t remember who or why. I don’t actually know any trout fishermen.

**

Trout fishing has an aura of elegance about it. A subtle style of violence and brutality practiced by gentlemen.  Doctors, dentists, lawyers. Men of influence and deep pockets. Chronic masturbators.

**

Just one more for the masochists

**

The Captain wears reluctant frown

The engines stopped, we’re going down

Below the ocean, dark and cold

It doesn’t look like we’ll grow old

together dear

Alas, this is the end I fear

So for these moments hold my hand

Try somehow to understand

I loved you always in my heart

Adored you from the very start

Likewise understand just how

It’s too late for confessions now

Keep our secrets in our head

(like you and Dave, that night in bed)

No-one’s perfect, that is true

(but what a nasty thing to do)

And please don’t mention Mary-Jane

As we die aboard this falling plane

Or the night you slept with her

Only then did it occur

to me that you were gay

But hey! It made you happy anyway

But goodness me I’m feeling sick

This plane’s descending like a brick

If this is it, if this is death

May I kiss you with my final breath?

**

THE END (for now) 

 

 

 

Here’s another one from my Substack burblings in response to a suggestion that one should go out and get what one wants.

I’d say that going after what wants is all very well, as long as you don’t want much.

*

I only get what I want

 if I want what I get

Much of what I’ve wanted  

I’d prefer to forget

Wanting what I get

hasn’t failed me yet

But wanting what I want

has led to regret

Of getting what I wanted

And the corresponding debt

So if I get what I want

now with guilt I’m beset

What I want is often dangerous

And it poses a threat

‘Cause I’m a victim of addiction

now I want a cigarette

*

I have spoken proudly of this before. It’s a very underrated survival technique. Especially in a world where everyone encouraging you to care deeply about almost everything, it is hard to maintain a positive position of not really caring very much about anything.

Rather than carefully ponder a response to the barrage of questions that always, in one form or another, ask, “what do you think of that?” and come up with a carefully considered, politically and culturally aware answer, it’s much more satisfying to respond with the words,

“You know what, mate? I couldn’t really give a fuck.”

Happiness is not to be found in the ups and downs of an emotional life, but in the flat line of blissful negligence.

I wrote the following as a response to a Substack post. I spend time on Substack taking soft swipes at people – which I suppose is a contradiction to my declared ambivalence. Inconsistency is another virtue. I’ll write about that at another time. If I feel like it.

*

Happiness, that passing curse

The good times that make bad times worse

The tide comes in, the tide goes out

With nought that you can do about

Cool water lapping round your toes

The joy that comes, the joy that goes

With light and dark, with night and day

Never any other way

Sunset follows every dawn

Leaving you confused, forlorn

So don’t be fooled, don’t take a chance

Stick with pure ambivalence.

 

 

 

It’s only subtle. Insidious may be a better word. But I’m finding it increasingly difficult to string more than a few sentences together these days. I have not failed in a writing competition for quite a while, however, having opted for the financially prudent tactic of not entering one.

I have scratched out a few lines that occasionally pretend to rhyme in response to others. But they are definitely getting worse, having already started from a low base.

But here’s some of them anyway, just for the record.

****

A nautical fellow named Frank

Took to sea in an old water tank

In there he hid

‘Till he opened the lid

And it filled full of water and sank.

*

There’s a spider crawling on the wall

I hear you calling will it fall

Upon the bed? Such dread

Spreads through your head

That with eight legs might thus be wed

I hear you thinking after all

That you might hold me close instead

Now on the floor a herd of ants

A military style advance

A target deep within your pants

And plans to make you squeal and dance

Should I upon them promptly prance?

Or give the beasts a fighting chance?

On the ceiling paint is peeling

Dirt concealing mould

There’s bugs there’s gnats

On filthy mats

The rats are getting bold

Before you kneeling. Still appealing

My love. You’re feeling old

No wheeling, dealing. No time worth stealing

Please give me healing from the cold

*

Poetry, as we all knows

Is for them, that don’t do prose

A platform for artistic rage

A mess of words thrown at the page

To let the reader rearrange

What might at first seem deeply strange

With meanings hidden from first view

The reader gives them life anew

It’s like my drawer of underwear

You’ll never find a matching pair

Of socks in there, if you should look

It’s just a poem, it’s not a book

But you’ll see better what I say

If you politely look away

And find a more reflective view

 Giving credit where no credit’s due

 *

 

Let us speak of magic

Of mysteries within

Of searching through the labyrinth

To end where we begin

Trapped within the chamber

Where we hide our every sin

Where we find what we have lost

Where we lose all that we win

I hear you in the distance

A gentle violin

Your spirit calls, I walk through walls

To reach beneath your skin

*

 

Grab a bottle, pop the cork

Kindly use a knife and fork

I allow you within my dominion

But I don’t want to hear your opinion

So take a seat, but please don’t talk

 *

We sit then we crawl then we walk

Use our hands then a spoon then a fork

Things are progressing

Our parents obsessing

But regretting the first day that we talk

 *

There is no proper time or place

Get that flag out of my face

Those precious lives all disappeared

To hide the truth you’ve always feared

To satisfy your petty need

Gorging on your filthy greed

*

Freedom.

a mirage

that grows real

with every second look

Until you walk towards it

And realise that you have imagined

Everything that you thought to be true

And that reality itself is just a mirage

From which you lack the freedom to look away

*****

Are you still reading? No? I thought not. I’ll shut up for another few months.