I was sitting in the doctor’s surgery today, getting a quick update on my life expectancies, when I came across a post from stoner expressing her common life experience and it seemed to me, at that point, that she might be describing a condition of which I am very familiar (but I might be wrong, she may have been saying something altogether different) and I tend to assume that it’s a common feeling, and that everyone tastes it, though not, perhaps, as often as I do.

Do you find yourself observing your own existence, as if a seperate entity? Do you marvel at how easily your other self navigates the everyday social demands of life with a clear, unemotional, logical indifference whilst acknowledging no connection with the panic that your real self is simultaneously experiencing?

No? Shit. Forget I even mentioned it.

Anyway… in the 5 minutes before the nurse arrived to usher me nervously into the room (my other self strode in exuding unrestrained confidence, I couldn’t help but notice) I wrote a quick reply.

It isn’t good.

It needs more thought and editing.

But it is honest, so I might just leave it be.

***

I’m just floating
On auto drive
Not even sure
That I’m still alive
Watching my body
Just doing his thing
Watching him dance
Watching him sing
But I’m not there
I’m out on a limb
He looks like me
But I’m not him
I’ve got no feeling
Neither has he
I wish he’d die
And let me be

I’m not much of a one for challenges – challenges being something that I traditionally fail. Nevertheless, when Fandango suggested ‘nothing’ I thought that I might actually have some of that. Combine that thought with the fact that I have been recently rendered ‘out of work’ and this is what happens. It has a sort of bouncy feel to it, don’t you think? I’ve no idea why.

***

There’s nothing doing

Yet I say I’m doing fine

Nothing on my calendar

I’m just standing in the line

Nothing in my pocket

Not nothing that is mine

But I’ll make it good one day

I’m just waiting for a sign

They call it unemployment

I call it undesired

They say I’m unemployable

I say I’m uninspired

There’s nothing in my resume

For which I will be hired

I’m disconnected. Dispossessed.

And so very, very tired

***

Here’s something uncharacteristic from me.

Nothing sentimental, nothing sad, nothing confronting, nothing suggestive or rude. A little more boring than even is usual, in other words.

But I wrote it for Kate, based on her own heartfelt post which you should read, here, and also in response to a few difficult moments between her and I, during which she questioned the non ‘family friendly’ nature of some of my posts and responses (not, I confess, without some justification).

So it’s a very brief commentary on our current situation and it’s a message (I hope) that suggests that whilst everything might be different, it is still OK.

It’s life. We are humans. Life is what we do.

****

Life is never definite
It’s never a straight line
The planet’s catching Covid
But me, I’m doing fine
We’re all here in this tunnel
There’s light there at the end
No-one knows how far it is
But we can just pretend
That this is what is normal
This is how we go
Wash your hands and wear your mask
Don’t let your feelings show
I’ll see you on the other side
Whatever’s there to see
Life is just what life becomes
What will be will be

***

Whoops. I saw this photograph here as an intended inspiration and had run with it before I read the fine print and discovered that it was supposed to be a tanka. Whatever that means.

I don’t really know how murder got into it but, you know, these things happen …

***

I’m hearing helter-skelter

Hearing clickety clack

Hearing metal wheels screaming

On a railway track

The whistle is a blowing

We’re racing with the wind

I don’t know where we’re going

But I know that I have sinned

Shackles on my ankles

Chains upon my wrists

They can’t control my thinking

But they can control my fists

I’m going down for murder

Going to pay for my mistake

There’s a guy and he was laughing

There’s a body in the lake

I don’t regret what I have done

I’d do it all again

I slit his throat, I watched him drown

He wasn’t laughing then

He was messing with my woman

Then confessing what he’d done

He thought I’d like to hear it

He thought it might be fun

I had a little fun with him

I cut him with my knife

I watched his body sinking

Then I went and did his wife

And now it’s helter skelter

There weren’t no bags to pack

We do the crime, we do the time

I ain’t coming back

***