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

***

Having publicity outed myself regarding my dreadful understanding of the word ‘poetry’ I thought that I should avoid the form and write something short that could not possibly be mistaken for a poem.

As usual, though, I had absolutely nothing interesting to say of my own so I stole an idea from Daffni who mentioned the concept of putting one’s head under water. Feeling a bit under siege myself, it sounded like a good idea.

This is what I had to say ….

If you hold your head under water for a while you can visit another world. It doesn’t have to be an ocean – the bath tub will do. But an ocean works best, I think.

It is not silent. Your ears are super sensitive. There seems to be a lot happening down there. You can hear stuff that comes from miles away, maybe from over the horizon. Or maybe from another galaxy. Who knows?

But these are sounds that you haven’t heard before and so you cannot find any meaning in them.
You are not frightened. It is peaceful and it is welcoming, this meaninglessness. You stay as long as you can.

Eventually, though, you have to come back up for air and, when you do, you find the world exactly as you had left it. You understand it perfectly.

So you put your head back in the water.