we have to stop katy perry and her gang of space villains

i should prepare
for social stress,
but foolishly
don’t push myself
so katy perry’s
in her spaceship
i’m burnt out
and need a facelift
she killed a nun,
i liked it not
oligarchic turn
make it stop

ah isn’t this just the worst timeline. where are we headed? katy perry hasn’t had a hit in years and yet bezos not only rocketed her into space, he also returned her safely. what a pointless technology.

do the worst people necessarily rise to the top, or does wealth and power just corrupt them when they get there? either way, its clear this system isn’t working very well for the average earthling.

sports food

as a broken limb
altered my spin
i bonk by bonkhill
(they slip a shag
in every gap)
i could be ripped
i swear
aside a predilection
for chocolate and beer
it’s a bitter sweet dichotomy,
but i need treats
eat sweet gelatine,
spluttering
up the mountain
traffic jam

what got me into sport? as a child, i just liked playing football. i was obsessive, it was all i did. i was a skinny wee boy. but i always thought i was fat for some reason. i wrote a short story about body image and social difficulties when i was about 15. i called it sunburn, but my teacher said it should be called ‘in your shadow’ and i just went along with it. i was thinking about it the other day, and decided to rename it ‘shade’.

i will dig it out and post it the blog sometime. but that was just a digression. i lost my connection to sport when i left school, and did get a little bit fat. because i love eating sweets. so i started dieting and running. lost the weight. felt accomplished.

but to keep the weight off, i needed to keep running. and, the sums are no good. a 40 minute run might only burn off two mars bars. so i got into road cycling. and now i just eat whatever sweets i fancy whenever i want. i’m not sure i would recommend this as ‘healthy’ or anything.

very grammable

from the whangie we frolick
gleeful down the hill
passions may contract
but others will swell
glow up and gentrify
come good in quick time
blow up my mentions
like and subscribe

the whangie is weird rock formation in the campsies, north of glasgow. we went on a trail run there. it was fun running down the hill but i was sore for days after.

i seemed to be doing a lot of thinking about social media this time a year ago. i was posting regularly to instagram at the time. i was wholly unsuccessful at creating my market there! man i hate zuck.

life under actually existing capitalism i

struggle along
an interminable corridor fight
we learned admin
marketing and talking shite
from skiving
at work and procrastination
and apply the techniques
to our recreation.
this is the end of the age
of the individual
brand ambassadorial
for the life metaphysical

life seems to be getting harder. so many delivery riders on contraptions, out in the rain all day, out in the cold, working for tips. artfully excluded from the minimum wage. meanwhile, linkedin an utter spam fest of ai generated jargon poetry about corporate journeys and the virtues of getting up at 5am to squeeze it all in. mum, marathon running, and ceo.

but i’ll have you know i work almost full-time, and i’m the ceo of my poetry business (turnover remains flat year on year, ebitda is very negative), and i’m erm, running a marathon. please spread the word, my first novel is being published this year and i need some readers. it’ll be out in time for christmas!

justice ii

justice delayed is
justice frustrated
so hasten the dawn
of infinite redress
the tariff is high,
the dumb face
with its smile
dollar diving
to market turmoil

so right it’s this alternative history novel and its like imagine if during the period circa 2016-2028 the usa elected a delirious reality tv star as president and he had to oversee a whole load of crises, like covid, the third world war, and the invention of killer ai robots. but the whole time the guy is just on the take and like bombing countries and assassinating world leaders just to manipulate the stock market and own the libs. oh yeah and like the far right / nazis are allied with israel for some reason?!

it’s far fetched tbh, wouldn’t recommend.

introducing (a stupid idiot)

i’m n.n. benn
that’s benn
with two n’s
i don’t claim
be an artist.
multidisciplinary
autistic typist
is what it says
on my passport
though sadly
i’ve been convicted
and sentenced
to hard poetry,
for infinite years
in both practice
and theory

this bit is a little tribute to the early 21st century glaswegian hip-hop duo, the stupid idiots. sadly, none of their music seems to be online any longer, and a new band is calling itself the stupid idiots on spotify. i presume the original stupid idiots’ lawyers will have been in touch.

once described by the nme as ‘gleefully profane’, i think its fair to say they were my favourite band of all time. just pipping a three way tie for second between bob dylan, enya and the archers’ theme song.

spring politic

the spring statement
brings further debasement
le pen
is not mightier
than the gavel bashed down
strong, stable,
a racist thieving clown
hold on tight for the gilet years
keep it strong and stable
on two round wheels
unique to the animal kingdom
is the migratory mamil
i guess we’ll know when,
if we get there in the end

marine le pen was sentenced to four years imprisonment for embezzlement. of course, a year later, she has yet to serve a day of that sentence. justice delayed is justice denied. i hope that the scottish courts act more definitively when considering the campervan found at our former first minister’s in-law’s.

echolalia of the unexpected

slight return,
wardrobe.
oil extraction,
floor drop
plucked pleasure
tucked, verbal
hangover synching
chew fat with the inmates

so this month i correctly counted that there were 13 post days in the month yet only wrote 12 bits. but luckily, i wrote some spare poetry in june 2024. you never know when you will just need a line or two to get you through a fallow patch.

i’d been sick with autistic burnout, i wasn’t exactly cured, but i knew that my problems weren’t going to go away and i needed to find some energy to get out of the hole i was in.

things are going good now though.

ecolalia iii

back is the pope,
undead
and me for plugs
i already had
my curly wurlies
turned to crunchie wunchies,
hocus pocus
popery, perhaps
i sit at my piano
mild in disbelief
as my fingers
gain unexpected
competence
and i wonder
who will win
when the purple
people-eaters
fight the purple-people
eaters?
down the manhole
there may be
a meat flower stramash
quiz the life autistic
with loafer luke
and the gang

two things.

one. i haven’t looked this up. or asked an ai. i think it’s important to contribute to the cultivation of folk lore by just saying things sometimes without checking. but hocus pocus, that what magicians say, originates from mockery of the latin used in catholic masses and as a criticism of the pagan elements, rituals and idols of catholic orthodoxy, which protestant reformers thought contradicted the instructions of the bible. so that’s a fun phrase.

two. if you practice or learn before bed, then sleep well, you should try practicing again in the morning as the brain keeps learning while you sleep.

ecolalia ii

my bug self-deports,
i’m dysregulated.
boiler for a bargain
lost momentarily
in the glimmer
and the shimmer
of the oceanic brine.
two birthdays,
buy cake for,
champagne do,
draft evader
put the wind up
the wind-up merchants
of demonic
unfair fun fair
input french fries
till vlad the putin dies
output poutine,
put out bridge
under lilac sky
get catatonic
on the hydroponic,
windy out west
with the wheelers

more plagiarism here. mahrooq’s verse on the stupid idiots d2k banger, ‘hater of fish’ described a whale swimming through oceanic swathes of brine. steal and credit is my policy.

then i guess i had a whole bunch of dumb phrases in my head. unfair funfair used to pop into my head all the time. and i’d be like yeah its ok but what am i supposed to do with it? i don’t like fairs. i don’t want to write about them. or go to them. but then i walked past one and i thought ok fine i’ll stick it in the poem. but i didn’t go to the fair.

btw i’m sure i had a game for the commodore 64 called ‘batman — a fete worse than death’ and even if i didn’t and that was not a thing that ever existed — i think about it quite a lot. i can’t work out if the pun is good or bad. it’s just part of who i am.