ecolalia iv and chorus 5

cross loss harvey gen
brung ecolalia home
from work again
a day of laundry,
chores.
scrub scrub
this our funereality,
a jumped up
anxious principality
scrub harder
peasant
yes, m’lord
much and many
scrubbings, sire

memento mori
never hits as hard
as a diagnosis
forever strong and stable,
and taking it on our noses

there’s the road ahead
and the music in my ears
a dream in my head
called the gilet years
it’s the beep of the derailleur
greeting the last cog
march on, forward, onwards,
towards our epilogue

ecolalia is the neurodivergent pleasure in repetition of phrases. this is where a lot of my poetry comes from. i was back from holiday. doing my chores. before some work travel. i had such a busy summer of travel and may was insane. i started a new job and spent 15 nights of the month in various travel accommodation outside scotland. i was struggling to find the time for my art. but it was also quite exciting. trying a different life. spoiler: it’s going to be quite stressful for a while. double spoiler: but it seems to be fine now, a year on. i’ve worked out how to do it now. see you next month when there will be yet more poetry.

the heel of the boot v

she drives
so i can faff
do you know
you hoove
with a hoover
and you put
loash on
overtake a wobbler
driver’s drinking a beer
with the phone to his ear
a green flash
from the monoxide meter
and an electric shock
from the wall socket
another laptop tizzy dash
stranded at the front
while the crew all pee
with the woman
from yesterday’s cafe
then reunited in aisle six
iron oxide
on duck egg gasometer
queues likely
on the way into town
best do some health
whole meal dinner
with broccoli prizes
should have had a taco,
chickened out

eventually, you know, you will hoove with a hoover. or the robot hoover will hoove the house. much like an apron used to be called a napron, words necessarily get perverted over time. i could care less! literally. that was a really nice holiday. then i had a brocolli prize dinner. i sort of had one last night on a train as well. whole grains, fat, brocolli. i really like brocolli. i don’t understand the low regard with which its generally regarded. this is a theme i will return to next week.

the heel of the boot iv

toggle be,
the jazziest beaver
i am untartened,
a border reiver
amaro montenegro,
an iron brew
why am i feart
of mosquitos
i’ve already been
bit like 40 goes
got one back
like cracking
human blood goo
from a winged black egg

my girlfriend likes to wear neck scarfs, so i got her a toggle, a bit like i used to have when i was in cubs. i left long before i got to scouts, where i would have been outed re my lack of a clan tartan, being a border reiver by birth. for long us benns have walked in the wilderness, reading aloud our poetry, making love under the king’s moon on english wildflower meadows, and pinching livestock. always getting bit by insects.

the heel of the boot i

couldn’t eat
the dinner she made me,
enzymes fail me
she forgets her passport!
in the air,
hunger avails me
credit card stand off
at the hire-car shop,
assistance is futile
trees like gobbled snails,
a white wine week of vees while
i unthread the pedal
and am not trusted
by the bike hire goon
tricasse porto, pizza, costal
flustered
mostly on wheels…

when i’m very stressed i don’t just not want to eat, i find trying to very unpleasant. i wasn’t quite that stressed before the holiday with my girlfriend’s friends who i hadn’t met but it was stressful enough to hit me in the appetite. then the morning was stressful too. in fact, everything was a bit stressful to begin with. credit card wouldn’t work at the hire car shop. a bike shop goon thought i was a bad mechanic. i mean, i am not the best mechanic, but i know what direction the pedals screw in. anyway.

under his eye iii

then i was home for the
first year of high school
alienated, scared,
quietly unusual
with no idea
what was wrong with me
needing people,
passions and a method of being
a year later,
on a coach to france,
i met k and c
and then p and s and g
(most of whom i fell in love with,
one of whom i am still in touch with)
who accepted me
when i rang their doorbells
every day

i am not sure how normal or otherwise it is to simply ring someone’s doorbell in the modern day. i suspect that most people now are like me now, and get the fright of a lifetime if someone unexpectedly rings the doorbell. but from age who knows eight, maybe, to at some point in midteenage, i would just go to the pal’s door and ring the doorbell and see if they were in if i wanted to hang out. even if nobody was in at least i got a walk.

also, remember to vote.

under his eye ii

crying to my mother
in the phone booth
an undiagnosed autistic
immature youth
unable to verbalise,
understand, explain
the abhorrent situation
i was in…
i had no way to pray
for succour
no deus ex machina
from the kirk

i seem to think about the pope more than most catholics. i always found church confusing as a child. jesus was a hippy peacenik sort of character. church people seemed much more stern. fundamentally uncool. it’s hard to imagine jesus ordering the burning of witches, or driving a land rover, or paying his workers a subsistence wage, or speculating in capital. or coveting wealth generally. yet so many rich people claim to be christians. like, as if they think the lower orders are too thick to spot the contradiction.

under his eye i

since the pope died,
i’ve had religion on my mind
child protection and it’s opposite,
no child’s left behind
i endured the kirk
and a ton of bunk
in the mid nineties
on a coach trip
to innsbruck
some older kids and me
i only joined the club to play football.
how did i end up here?

i’ve been on a bit of a poetic frenzy recently. i feel an urge to overproduce poetry, to give me some spare time to do other things. but then i have a spare moment and i work on some more poetry. because it’s fun. so maybe i’ll never finish the bloody novel i’m working on. it’s called ‘the san estaban mayoral election of 2016’, subtitle ‘a historical novel by n.n. benn’

ecolalia iv

a trio, sub-mantric
cerulean bohemian
utilitarian
sub deeper, throwaway
discount viscount
shagatha christie
sing along, sing aloud,
twirl in the street right now
a human positioning system
a global grid
of great big bricks
reggie regular
or reggae reggae
i’ve somehow
run out of chilli powder

it is important to personal branding to know your style. the meme is that you should have three words that describe your style, and you should only invest in new clothing assets if they are coherent with your stockpile. my summary trio is ‘cerulean, bohemian, utilitarian.’ hope that helps if you are considering buying my clothing. size xs/s depending on brand.

anyway, i won’t bother explaining any further of what is mostly an indulgent nonsense poem. please don’t unsubscribe (unless you don’t want to receive further emails from me).

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!

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.