mortal again

in how many people’s memories do i still live?
what degree of blur, how precise an image?
there is nothing mere about mortality
there will be humdrum finalities like the last cup of tea
the last step in the sea. the last shag
the last time taking out taking out the bin bags
so i say memento mori at least every day
and when things get hard, i’ll try to be there

i genuinely do try and say memento mori every day. there are so many sad things about life. but life, as far we know, is the whole show. so you’ve got to try and make the most of it really. try not to spend all day reading the news. remain in denial about creeping authoritarianism and the collapse of the world order. who knows, maybe things will get better eventually.

i think i’m going to start watching star trek from the beginning. i think i’m ready.

smash and ooze

you smash the avocado, bring the force within you down
your zeitgeist, your energy and spirit
oozes, you infuse us in it
but our guests left us with an odd moment
mutually dysregulated, endlessly in torment
good souls do forgive all souls, but is every corpus soulful?

i was randomly flicking through my old emails from university and noted quite a few where i had emailed tutors chasing for essays. i hate uncertainty, hate waiting for the answer. i remembered logging into to websurf, the university’s online student platform, to check my exam results. just mindlessly refreshing the page. then eventually, my degree certification was there. it came through first, before the rest of my exams were uploaded, and i felt such relief. joy, general excitement, but essentially relief. a non-shameful result.

i had dropped out of uni after first year. had a difficult time after leaving school, suffering from autistic burnout. after a few years i was ready to try again. i didn’t really have any expectations, the best grade i had got in first year was a c i think. i just wanted to stop myself from drifting into a life of unrewarding cycle of repetitive work, burn out and unemployment. which felt like not just a real possibility, but probably the most likely outcome for me at 19 years old.

anyway, that relief and joy was tempered almost immediately when i realised i didn’t have a job, wasn’t especially suited to one, to be honest struggled with all the entry level positions i’d ever had, and was useless in job interviews.

i’m proud anyway.

plug stuck

am overwhelming day, a meltdown throws my phone away
the bath is full of soapy water, the plug stuck in its circlet
it’s thursday the 12th, what the fuck will tomorrow bring?
i start the drill and it’s enough
to scare the plug from its crown

when you find out you are probably autistic, there is a tendency to temporarily get more autistic. i have actually only had a few meltdowns. i am a quite person. i am prone to shutdowns. i don’t like to draw attention to myself.

the few meltdowns i have had have tended to get me in serious trouble. like, arrested, or hospitalised.

on this occasion, i merely smashed a phone that was already quite scratched up and to be honest i probably wanted an excuse to buy a new one.

oh and the plug got stuck in the bath. i have written about this before! it was annoying! check the archives!

5 beta 1

i make a million lists
and enjoy morning mist
from november 2016
us cyclists are cut from different stuff.
but not very much of it
aged 39, version 4.0, aged four-zero, version 5 beta 1
you gotta believe me, life comes for you, son

so i had a mid life crisis from 2022-23. i got misdiagnosed with emphysema and spiralled a bit. got very depressed. went through a break up. fell in love. then got unmisdiagnosed.

i sort of jokingly referred to my mid life crisis as benn 4.0. but before i even really got into the swing of it, i found out i was autistic. so i decided i’m not on benn 5 beta 1.

diarrhoea and dandruff

put primo down, nobody cared, not even humoured
zapped and solitary, unarchiving and decrypting
violent gut, cash drop,
shy black sheep dribble down a gravel path…
as a poet it frustrates me no end that i am able to articulate my identity crisis
only through the bodily language of diarrhoea and dandruff.

i’d just recorded the first song of my album, toblerone, but nobody was very interested. that remains the case — it is available on spotify and all other good record streams though if you are interested. search for ‘the love epochal’. at the time i was planning on releasing a new song and video every month.

one of the things about autism is that it can be hard to work out how time consuming a plan is going to be. it turns out that schedule was incompatible with having a job. but i managed it for six months and that’s quite good i reckon.

and when i wrote these lines, i was having an identity crisis and was suffering some physical symptoms. itchy scalp. bad gut. good thing i had my poetry to keep me going.

iceberg lean-to

i construct and unscrew,
mucky pup grana podano iceberg lean-to
banana brought to the monkey puzzle tree party
interoception fails me, intercepted daily
life in general is supremely () based
release back lever,
push the back backwards
and it pings back forwards
yeah i’m bringing back sexy back

i was helping my girlfriend with some diy, mainly just getting in the way and slowing things down. we took a break and went for pizza on v. rd. very good pizza. the best in town. and for a side we got an iceberg grana padano lean-to. it wasn’t really a lean to. it was more of a pavilion of lettuce in a snowstorm of cheese. i took poetic licence.

then i read a sentence in a book about autism that said life in general is supremely socially based, which i laughed at due to the internet meaning of based.

then i played with my office chair and reflected on justin timberlake.

i postulate a remedy

i postulate a remedy that dismantles temporarily
the apparatus of the mind that filter and sieve
and obfuscate the things historic versions of the user
have deemed to be unhelpful.
the patient’s neuroplasticity is augmented,
the user returned to her pure, infantile character,
unvarnished by cynicism, laughing at the creases on her fingers,
laughing and forgetting everything.
available from all good doctors.

hello, welcome to the new month. i hope you enjoy the lines above, regarding a medicine that i think many people might enjoy. because you know, it’s wild out there on the mean streets.

just today, i was cycling down v. rd when a lunatic tried to kill me for no reason. he almost hit me at a junction, unintentionally but carelessly. i gave his bumper a wee tap with my hand to let him know i was there. he took this as an invitation to try again to kill poor me.

he then raced to try and hit me at the next road that the bike lane crossed over, but got there too late. so he reversed back onto the main road, and tried again, driving road onto the bike lane outside the post office. fortunately he didn’t get me. but he did get out the car to confront me — i obviously just raced away.

anyway, one of the posties got in touch with a photo of the vehicle. should i shop him?

theory of art

more chocolate, aye? indolent wean
you can’t afford it so your not having it
i have a theory that ultimately art is just a way of filling time, no more noble than sports
different but the same

well that was august. i suppose we will have september next as part two: getting there (a brexit prayer) continues.

i’m going to reduce the av content for a while. it has been fun but it hasn’t generated much engagement while distracting me from other things, like actually working on poetry and music. so i am just going to be posting on the blog a couple of times a week with poetry and thoughts while i finish a novella i am working on called ‘comin’ up.’

the last day of summer

get out of the city, they said, it’s the last day of summer
the pierced beef monster prances like a panzer
leaving me stranded in my body with my pain
spent like a torn fiver on rest and be thankful again
i feed the birds i make them sing
good souls do forgive everything

me and n. g. were gonna cycle round arran. but the ferry was broken so we needed a new plan last minute. decided to go to kilcreggan but missed that ferry. so went to dunoon instead. cycled uphill for ages. then descended into a field and got chased by a bull. huge thing with a nose ring and a mohawk. luckily we escaped and went on to have a successful bike ride off roading around argyle and i hardly cursed and swore and despaired at all.