i do try and be a good stoic, and i touch on themes of stoicism often in the poem. every day i make a point of thinking about the fact that i will die and i don’t know when. and i try and remember to think of one specific person, and remember that they will die too. a different person each day. people i love, people i wish were already dead, people i barely know.
i think i’d heard on a podcast that the carthaginians were excellent navigators and seafarers. in fact, they even visited the canary islands, where i was when i wrote this line. both my grandfathers spent time at sea. ‘worse things happen at sea,’ they say. well, i was struggling with the stormy weather enough on dry land.
it’s a new month, so i have a new verse out on the youtube / spotify / apple music. it’s called the slugabed. hope you like it.
i just spent two days solid sorting through emails. all my emails since gmail was invented. almost 20 years of emails. so many rejections from jobs. from the lowest paid, lowest skilled, right up to the top – board level. no matter what step of the ladder i aim for, my skill profile doesn’t quite work. so that’s why i’m a poet and a cyclist. and this line was my lonely, dyspraxic protest against winds that i was too scared to ride in on my bike holiday.
when i was younger, all my friends were my age. we shared a frame of reference. same teachers, food, tv shows. as you get older, you start to recognise differences that passed you by. different types of parent. differing wealth. different trajectories.
now i have friends of all ages and it has really struck me – everyone’s experience is unique. there are generational flavours of course. but in a way, we are trapped solitarily in our experience, knowing the things we know, being the people we are.
volcanic shores and gales of fearsome solitude
mapped out like a navigable carthaginian, i was not
so, a stoic, i mourn each day a day lost
and think a blushing thought of soft skinned twins of twins
just a finger’s pinch, a shallow bite, a nibble
not a repast but the popped french cork starter pistol
for a glorious wedding breakfast.
the wind cools and we race to the ferry and over the hill
comfortable in the air between fiction and essay—
a soul impressed by power and wealth is not worth impressing:
momento mori and more is yet to come.
i’ll be home soon, waiting for you
i’m skylarking back with the new month’s tunes
and there is an elder geezer in louis vuitton shoes
his amex was in a stolen purse
has 1000 euro cash money and wants a chicken wrap
pours his heiney to a flexy tumbler, up to the brim
thanks the kindly lass across the aisle for a short term loan
and i listen to cohen again and wonder if i’m obsessive
in the wet, warm drink i sip the spirit water, and ponder
i react first with emotion, the weight takes a while to settle
i’m let down and i let down
there is no reasoning with the passions.
sometimes i feel like i’m not a real person—a lack i’ve sought in others
credit for debit, the difference solo temporal
evolve the revolving door, better round than in
any task, i’ll find a way to do it
my first instinct may be wrong but given infinite time…
our reunion was a salty affair, trolling agents and sellers
ebitdata scientists don’t budget for trauma:
cutting teeth. immersed in the pain pearlescent
I wonder if being kidnapped by my mum‘s best friend as a child had a lasting effect?
unrelated: the knot in my chest will spring from my mouth and rip out my guts
leaving a slugabed trapped in a pole vaulter’s libido
territorial, barking at my next door neighbour on the landing, hello
stand up for yourself, for [] sake
ah, woof! we all rely on the good souls who forgive us
all stoned poets think they are funny—well i am funny
or unusual anyway
shilling for a limited europe, my identity fading, delaminated
not drunk, just exuberant. and well nourished
cycling down a road like the dream where i find another room in my house
moist stroll, jelly tower shuffle, cheesing postbox, very cruel
charge another hour to diary management
you simply must believe the story you tell yourself
(excuse me for hoping to feature so prominently in it
a big and empty feeling filling a sad gap
why do i act like ive found the one true way of being when it doesn’t me happy?
but then bliss is in my life and the doldrums abate
we extend the family table, aware the ides of march
once again i chop chillies then piss and my dick burns
i count the first lambs of spring and dig a few hills
fitments suitable for various screws, but none of this massivity
a sombre lover, indolent turbo, fresh strain spring clean shower interrupter
a plan for mouth and fingers, mutuality of idyll desire
a hotbed of fervour, preachers on manic street
indigent, indignant and surplus to requirements
always leaving, never gone, tomorrow never will crystallise
the turncoat, former scapegoat, grasping for a banknote
but there is no antidote.
we hereby shall rely (on the good souls who forgive us)
chorus 3 – march
have you tried the toblerone, stupid child?
i have a theory my anti car philosophy is not strictly environmental
but because i was in two major car crashes before i was 10
different, but the same
shrinkflation, skimpflation, it’s hard not to feel like we are living in troubled times. despite technological advances, we seem to be continually told we need to work harder, and for longer, and that we should expect less.
while the stock market rallies….
inequality makes me sad. there is so much suffering in the world. i hope we can find a better way to do things. but modern technology can be pretty great. the access we have to music now is quite incredible. almost like magic.
i was just having a beer and feeling nice and relaxed on the balcony. sunbathing behind a wind blocker. feeling chilled out and at one with the world, listening to leonard cohen.
we went to a resaurant on top of a hill and nearly blew away. i could feel my sliders blowing off my feet as i trudged up and down the sand dune. i think the food was alright though.
#gastronomy
santa lucia, bocadillo con queso, cortardo y cerveza it’s great to be back
pretty self explanatory. a cheap and good cafe. half way up or down a hill. roll and cheese and a milky coffee on the way up. ice cream and a shandy on the way down.
we walked to the next town across for lunch one day. went to a pretty average/crap cafe. it was a longish walk back. an hour or so. i needed to pee so snuck behind a screen at an abandoned construction site. accidentally stood on a plastic jug of dark oil. who knows what it was but it got all over me. ruined my brand new shoes. the only pair i brought with me! traumatic.
and when we got back home, it turned out the restaurant we went to was a chain. and there was another one right next to our apartment. the only half decent restaurant in town as well.
the love epochal. n.n. benn 