but i ask, what app is it on which i will find this so called authentication code, and chorus

krypton factor
authenticity
villification code
is this landing?
is this a story
that needs to be told?
chat gpt
thinks my poetry sucks
well, shucks
i was promised strong and stable

get tucked in for the gilet years
keep it strong and stable
despite hopes and fears
a pudding waits
at the end of the repast
let’s hope we get there
at last

remember the world before you needed to have a million apps on your phone? i had the original apple ipod touch. it was an incredible device. you had to jailbreak it to install any apps that weren’t the apple defaults. but it already had a web browser and email and that was enough to be perfectly useful.

remember the even better world before camera phones? there are so few photos of me prior to about 2008. and the world is probably better for that. man i hate having to pose for a photo. or stopping to take a photo. remember when taking a selfie used to be embarrassing?

man i am so old. anyway, off to take a mirror selfie to post to instagram. sorry for the grumpy. please take photos and use apps if you enjoy it. the phone has changed me too. now i merely lurk on flame wars on reddit rather than engaging in them on bb forums.

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.

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.

smell tomato paste and cheddar, my da’s cooking, my home

i was just making some toast and cheese and i thought i’ll make it a bit fancy since, let’s be honest, this is what i’m having for dinner.

so i mixed some seeds and tomato paste and olive oil and salt and cheese into a lumpy paste, spread it on wholemeal pitta bread and bunged it into the oven and make a sort of turbo-pizza snack. and i remembered cooking with my dad when i was a wee boy.

we would buy pre-made pizza bases from the supermarket. or even just a crispy morton’s roll. and then tomato paste and cheese. so my version is a wee bit fancier. but that’s just a generational shift. there’s more stuff in the supermarket now than there was when i was a kid. nobody cared about mixed seeds and whole grains then. the food my parents eat now is different from the food they are then.

that’s why nostalgia is so emotional, and can hit so hard. it’s that longing that you didn’t know you had for a thing that you cannot have, because it just doesn’t exist anymore.