an introduction to the love epochal

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my poetry is about process, as much as it is a poem. i think of the love epochal as one long poem that i hope will never end. maybe someone can pick it up from me at some point. pass on the responsibility until the robots replace us.

it is just a series of random poetic thoughts i have. or overhear. a lot of business jargon finds its way in. little bits of gossip about random people. lots of thoughts in the bath about philosophy. but ultimately it’s a sort of diary of the life a fictional, autistic poet who is trying to approach the world with unconditional love but can’t help hating fascists while also being busy and overwhelmed generally by the day to day experience of life.

i edit the poem and post it pretty much one year to the day after each bit was written. the editing is a dialectical struggle between coherence and adherence to the linearity of thought. at first, i just put it more or less in the order it was written and just edited for rhythm and rhyme.

after performing a few times, i started aiming more for coherence, re-ordering to try and link the thoughts into a series of almost self contained little poems. but you can’t herd poets so generally i fluctuate between these two poles never fully committing either way. perhaps to the project’s detriment. who knows. i’m just an artist. i don’t have to make sense.

i also write little blog posts inspired by the day’s poetry. and i sometimes make spoken word versions of bits from the poem, and videos, and these things can be found on spotify, youtube, apple music, all those things. and that’s what the love epochal is.

ecolalia iv and chorus 5

cross loss harvey gen
brung ecolalia home
from work again
a day of laundry,
chores.
scrub scrub
this our funereality,
a jumped up
anxious principality
scrub harder
peasant
yes, m’lord
much and many
scrubbings, sire

memento mori
never hits as hard
as a diagnosis
forever strong and stable,
and taking it on our noses

there’s the road ahead
and the music in my ears
a dream in my head
called the gilet years
it’s the beep of the derailleur
greeting the last cog
march on, forward, onwards,
towards our epilogue

ecolalia is the neurodivergent pleasure in repetition of phrases. this is where a lot of my poetry comes from. i was back from holiday. doing my chores. before some work travel. i had such a busy summer of travel and may was insane. i started a new job and spent 15 nights of the month in various travel accommodation outside scotland. i was struggling to find the time for my art. but it was also quite exciting. trying a different life. spoiler: it’s going to be quite stressful for a while. double spoiler: but it seems to be fine now, a year on. i’ve worked out how to do it now. see you next month when there will be yet more poetry.

the heel of the boot v

she drives
so i can faff
do you know
you hoove
with a hoover
and you put
loash on
overtake a wobbler
driver’s drinking a beer
with the phone to his ear
a green flash
from the monoxide meter
and an electric shock
from the wall socket
another laptop tizzy dash
stranded at the front
while the crew all pee
with the woman
from yesterday’s cafe
then reunited in aisle six
iron oxide
on duck egg gasometer
queues likely
on the way into town
best do some health
whole meal dinner
with broccoli prizes
should have had a taco,
chickened out

eventually, you know, you will hoove with a hoover. or the robot hoover will hoove the house. much like an apron used to be called a napron, words necessarily get perverted over time. i could care less! literally. that was a really nice holiday. then i had a brocolli prize dinner. i sort of had one last night on a train as well. whole grains, fat, brocolli. i really like brocolli. i don’t understand the low regard with which its generally regarded. this is a theme i will return to next week.

the heel of the boot iv

toggle be,
the jazziest beaver
i am untartened,
a border reiver
amaro montenegro,
an iron brew
why am i feart
of mosquitos
i’ve already been
bit like 40 goes
got one back
like cracking
human blood goo
from a winged black egg

my girlfriend likes to wear neck scarfs, so i got her a toggle, a bit like i used to have when i was in cubs. i left long before i got to scouts, where i would have been outed re my lack of a clan tartan, being a border reiver by birth. for long us benns have walked in the wilderness, reading aloud our poetry, making love under the king’s moon on english wildflower meadows, and pinching livestock. always getting bit by insects.

the heel of the boot iii

morning lag,
saddle bag snag
locked up rear
momentary fear
east is beast
west for rest
the church by the wine bar
they ring the bells
to summon up
the ghosts from hell
until they have
a quorum
to discuss matters
ecclesial
in their
worthy forum
there was
anarchic popelessness,
the vatican
was hopeless with
erratic sin
and soulless stress
you understand
the mess we’re in!

we had some funny luck with our bikes on the holiday. the crank arm was threaded and the pedal fell off. we got a different bike. and we had a little difficulty with balancing above, rather than on, the tarmac. the saddle bag strap on my bike snapped and the bag fell into the wheel and the strap got stuck in the brake caliper. although the first i knew of it was a noise and the wheel locking up. quite scary but kept it upright.

the heel of the boot ii

the roman tricolore
basil, tomato and cheese
and the teal from the sky
to the seas
post ride,
ride the tide to ankle deep
eat the weans’ white ices
except
oor wan wean’s
nae teethen’ yet
a semi colon;
then we slept

but then we were on the holiday and it wasn’t stressful. the food was great. the weather was great. i made new friends, including a cheerful baby who had just learned to wave.

the heel of the boot i

couldn’t eat
the dinner she made me,
enzymes fail me
she forgets her passport!
in the air,
hunger avails me
credit card stand off
at the hire-car shop,
assistance is futile
trees like gobbled snails,
a white wine week of vees while
i unthread the pedal
and am not trusted
by the bike hire goon
tricasse porto, pizza, costal
flustered
mostly on wheels…

when i’m very stressed i don’t just not want to eat, i find trying to very unpleasant. i wasn’t quite that stressed before the holiday with my girlfriend’s friends who i hadn’t met but it was stressful enough to hit me in the appetite. then the morning was stressful too. in fact, everything was a bit stressful to begin with. credit card wouldn’t work at the hire car shop. a bike shop goon thought i was a bad mechanic. i mean, i am not the best mechanic, but i know what direction the pedals screw in. anyway.

a short poem about a short cycling holiday in argyll

a hot heat,
awestruck, fading
but you won’t get rid of me
a lizard in argyll,
a long goodbye,
hyper-palatability
confused saint mungo,
road chicken strut
and tut. and tut.
sent the pint back
and got a new one
just the same

there’s the road ahead
and the music in my ears
an idea in my head
called the gilet years
it’s the beep of the derailleur
greeting the last cog
march on, forward, onwards,
towards our epilogue

i am always thrilled to see a lizard, all the more so if it’s in scotland. you don’t see a lot of lizards here. i’ve seen more red squirrels than i’ve seen lizards here. three squirrels. two lizards. oh i ordered a pint of st mungo and it was dead nice. in the bar. then i ordered another one, in the restaurant. but it tasted different, not as nice as the first, so i assumed they had given me the wrong thing and sent it back. anyway, the exact same flavour of pint came back. i think maybe they gave me the wrong pint at the first bar.

agent trump i

frigid lager
on the balcony,
the sun is blaring
and when
i’m deckchairing
i feel i could lean out
and shout
to my neighbours
in baghdad
havana, chicago,
moscow, haw vlad
agent trump is dreamin’
of escape from alcatraz

agent trump thinks he’s quite the comedian. with all his silly nicknames. that do tend to stick and be quite good, much to the dismay of me and many. so i’m going to nickname him from now on. agent trump. really was looking in to reopening alcatraz.

raze justice

arbitrary justice
is not justice
power exercised without
reason tends to evil
nobody talks about
harvey weinstein anymore
or the panama papers
we need new ideas
not new scandals daily
razed to the ground
confused me
for so many years,
until i saw it written down
it feels cruelly ironic
beneath war’s fog

the fog of war, said hegseth. after instructing his navy to explode a fishing boat. then firing again upon the survivors. we must make a point of remembering these crimes. if america doesn’t hold its villains to justice, once the madness is over, the message of might is right could dominate the remaining decades of humanity’s global colony.

under his eye iv

so, pope bob the communist,
riddle me this
if all of life
is formed of carbon,
ejected from the factory chimney
which i understand it is
are the two poles
of the toothbrush moustache,
mirth and antimirth?
matter and antimatter
genocide and love
and why does the church
always make things worse?

so i think i like pope bob. obviously, he believes in all the bad catholic stuff like homophobia and sexism. but at least he is against war and generally against poverty and for love, of some sort. so yes, i like him fine as pope. but not enough to tempt me to transubstantionate with him.