Category: s19 july 25/26

the neutral samaritan (prologue) and chorus

i try to be a taciturn
neutral samaritan
a helpful mannequin
directing crooks and stooges
alike on their quests
we’ll work it out on
the trans europe express
i spend a sunny night
stuck at my desk
turn it up, this is techno-something
but what’s next

this is the trilogy of four to the floor
the thump sets the beat
and the dog whistle the tone
kick drum snare
in your headphones in your home
the technofuture is ours alone

thank you for joining me for the first stanza of part four of the love epochal: technodeterminism. i predict more in august.

this was shocking at the time, but nothing compared to the time i accidentally shaved my moustache off when i was sick

push my list to time unknown,
stare blankly at my phone
remove my specs
for the looking glass
overcome briefly
by the novelty
of my naked face
declare a moratorium
on anything
more laborious
than the thought
that all must die
and life goes on
in memoriam

i was sick the other week and the first thing to go is my decision making skills. i don’t know why but i was sure my moustache needed balancing. the next thing to go of course is motor skills. a bit off that side. oops too much. try the other. ah. oh dear. too small. the only viable moustache is now the hitler one. and that is a bad moustache for several reasons. before i knew it i’d shaved my whole face and no longer recognised myself in the mirror. fortunately it has grown back now.

the tyranny of the self

you know,
i’m so annoying.
why do i have to be me?
of all the people,
what are the chances,
why must i be me?
and everyone else as well.
why are
they so annoying
and why can’t i be them
and my question, fundamentally
is why can’t they be me?

if there was one thing i would change about the human experience, it would be that umwelt swaps should be not just possible but relatively easy, such that we really could experience how it feels to be different people. specific people. why not actually see it from your wife’s point of view? or feel what it feels to be about to die. or to be a newborn baby.

events, dear boy, events

a thought i have a lot
is that the present is just
the way it is because of things
that already happened
and how different the world could be
if different things had happened
i wouldn’t be alive
if it wasn’t for the second world war
how should i feel about hitler?
how should i feel as a child of genocide?
on a planet still full of fascists
and sympathisers

is it better to live among fascists or not live at all? it is certainly a depressing way to live. how can a person choose to be evil? why are we hard wired for cruelty? it’s a moot point i guess. for now the main struggle is just getting them out of power.

dog tricks of the long distance runner

on a 30 kilometre run,
in my 20th season
after a thousand hours running,
i suddenly reason
my cap slides
into my waistband,
bends round the hip
and the inbuilt pants
mean it won’t slip.

i’m not sure what to say about this other than – if you run – and you are my size and shape – and you have the sort of shorts that have underwear built in – then if you are ever not sure whether to wear a baseball cap on your run or not, you should just wear it because if your head gets too warm you can slide the hat into your shorts. or you could just hold it in your hand. or put it in the bin or give it away, i suppose.

forced to say ta-dah at hot yoga, humiliating, and chorus

come on, bon bon;
she literally dumped me
yoga ta-da,
run home wet,
get a pineapple at the tesco
turn it up turn it up turn it up,
this is techno

this is the trilogy of four to the floor
the thump sets the beat
and the dog whistle the tone
kick drum kick
in your headphones in your home
the technofuture is ours alone

walking home from the pub one night listening to the rest is politics podcast i had an idea for a new political party. the party will be called the new conservatives we will describe ourselves as a socially liberal version of conservatives: a centre-right economic position, a belief that government social morality should be progressive but also always lag a tad behind broader society, et cetera.

but actually the politics will all be really left-wing – we will nationalise public services and raise taxes on the rich and stuff like that. when challenged we will simply refer to the post-war consensus that existed until 1979. and we will accuse our opponents of being communists regardless of the form of challenge. thank you for your attention to this matter.

a sunny weekend in greater st albans

backpack to london
for the downtown fun run
ladybirds, butterflies,
apple trees
and sofas in the sun
through the field of wheat
like a young theresa may
teal dragonfly perched
on a vibrant green
leaf above a rust bed stream
we wade with baggy minnows
by the weeping willow
clock two foxes,
attempt avuncular football
scorched between the bridges
peddle assisted
to the bucket hat photobomb
goosebumps on
the cold carriage home

this was a lovely holiday. it was sunny. saw friends. family. wildlife. waded in a stream. it was very cold on the train home though.

all billionaires are paedos we just haven’t proved it yet

mishear flushing pedos,
think will someone leak
the epstein files
*sniffs* smell that lass?
that’s football.
and it’s comin’ home
and it actually does
but i still have a wee tear for the losers
that’s a feeling i understand

then lo and behold they did release the epstein files, at least, some of them, not the video recording. and weird, nobody has been lifted. this is the worst cover up in history and yet nobody is arrested. maxwell moved to a swanky luxury prison. offers to testify in exchange for favours. trump, named more than almost anyone, remains in situ.

then england’s women won the euros and that was a bit cheerier but, due to the nature of this poem, it became attached at a section about a billionaire pedo cabal. sorry, lionesses. i did cheer for you.

something of the morning ii

it’s really quite alarming
see there’s something of the morning…
don’t they know
paracetamol
will directly cause neurodivergence… ?

i’m getting quite dysregulated
you know, it’s something of the morning…
these people
bring me out in sweats
i need another transfusion…

well now i’ve really had enough
of these zombies of the morning….
talk of the
kennedy curse
it’s the living that i fear for…

the way he croaks his words, the bizarre anecdotes re roadkill, the thing that lived on his brain. he is just so unusual. i simply reject that the world can be this insane. it must be me who is insane. [jumps from window]