Author: n.n. benn

n.n benn is fictional and autistic. this is their diary. new poetry and philosophical musings every tues, thurs and sat direct to your inbox. and while you are here, check out my videos on youtube and spoken word poetry on spotify, apple music etc (search for the love epochal)

domsing bad, wee butt tender, hungrier than a mothered flincher

i think this was just a whatsapp message i sent and then thought ah well that’ll do for poetry today. and then at some point later i thought, ‘maybe i should change the incestuous swearword to something more (and less) family friendly.’ it probably isn’t going to be remembered as one of the all time best lines in the english language. i guess this is all a very elaborate way of telling the world that in early january of 2024, my butt hurt from deadlifts

stanza 1 – toblerone

hamstrung by the ancestors of landlords
beneath the distant barren peaks of a toblerone—
the traumatic trough entrenches resilience.
a slight slide and crunch underfoot on icy steps,
the organism (the leviathan) slips into disequilibrium.
revolted by bolts of thunderous chunder, and a cold sweat
a risky coffee poured into the evacuated gut.
in a feverish daze, i found the courage to ask for help
and was restored—with my problems undiminished
domsing bad, wee butt tender, hungrier than a motherfucker
you let me stop back at your warm, little cove
hollow pegs, bonking, splat on the wall
hula hoops, double drop glucose—i’m back in the winter sun.
a felled tree blocked our path—round we went in the mud
my diary in fact proved a lesson in epistemology
isn’t it always the case that party chat evaporates?
from the overhung underpass on green holds, in one
i had my morning shower mid way round my run was
woke is a post colonial attitude that assuages my white guilt
made in china by terracotta serfs:
we all rely on the good souls who forgive us.
i console myself by thinking humans are but plankton or a moss
coating the globe, turning air from one form to the other
arranging strange loquacious fragments, enjambe—
ment. meant cement, ‘a bag on the heid, revolt and foment
an engaged driver with more issues than the london times
an old flame left my close fire door ajar
on a grey Saturday, and made plans to break plans
in the tempest’s fallout, the provost closed the saunas down
and if you reap the dividends you better keep receipts
(because i do) and i know what’s owed
if your finger’s in the till, be aware the drawer slams closed
in scotland, the scotch pie is simply called “a pie”
love is a feeling, not a decision, surrender to it
every act cast’s a vote for your honour and character
Ya puddin’, ya haggis, yer cheap lousy habits
An address to yer arse and lets make it the last
A southerly wind blew the weather away
and nae cunt’s wearing tartan
the stress of january can lead to bad decisions:
we all rely on the good souls that forgive us

chorus one – january

sweet child, have you tried the toblerone?
it’s very expensive, and different but not nicer
I have a theory that burns is to ayr as ice cube to compton
different, but the same

hamstrung by the ancestors of landlords

i don’t know when i came up with this line but i knew it was an opening line and i had to just sit on it until i found a project for it. for centuries, the land has been owned by the descendants of cronies of corrupt kings who claimed the divine right to steal nature’s bounty.

the very first principle of liberty, per john locke, is that by mixing one’s labour with the land, one can take ownershup of it, as long as enough is left for others. this caveat was quickly forgotten by libertarians and aristocrats alike.

beneathe the distant barren peaks of a toblerone

i had decided i wanted to write an epic poem about brexit called toblerone after a shrinkflation measure increased the steepness and gaps of the chocolate troughs. i started writing the poem several times without success before it clicked in 2024 – brexit is a permanent process, the poem must also be a permanent process.

the traumatic trough entrenches resilience

the trough refers to both the increased gap between the peaks of the austerity toblerone, and to the inverse trough, that of the profit hungry pigs, feating on the chocolate shavings. from the many to the few, a tale as old as yawn is it that late already

a slight slide and crunch underfoot on icy steps

well it was january. i can’t recall the steps referred to, but i have always delighted in the crunch of virgin frost underfoot. it is january again now, and there is again ice underfoot, although it is the solid, rather than the crunchy sort. significantly more lethal.

the organism (the leviathan) slips into disequlibrium

my body like my polity. recalling thomas hobbes’s leviathan, a brutal philosophy of man in the state of nature, who by neccesity, in order to escape murderous anarchy, incorporates a vile king to rule over him. but people are perhaps fundamentally disagreeable. all tyrannies eventually end and it is the natures of states to be merely that: temporary states of being.

after 14 years of conservative incompetence, great britain, it seemed to me, was becoming ungovernable. likewise, my body, my monsterous corpus, was succombing to a shellfish related vomitting bug. sick with norovirus – i slipped into a debilitating disequilibrium.