Tag: #poetry

an introduction to the love epochal

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my poetry is about process, as much as it is a poem. i think of the love epochal as one long poem that i hope will never end. maybe someone can pick it up from me at some point. pass on the responsibility until the robots replace us.

it is just a series of random poetic thoughts i have. or overhear. a lot of business jargon finds its way in. little bits of gossip about random people. lots of thoughts in the bath about philosophy. but ultimately it’s a sort of diary of the life a fictional, autistic poet who is trying to approach the world with unconditional love but can’t help hating fascists while also being busy and overwhelmed generally by the day to day experience of life.

i edit the poem and post it pretty much one year to the day after each bit was written. the editing is a dialectical struggle between coherence and adherence to the linearity of thought. at first, i just put it more or less in the order it was written and just edited for rhythm and rhyme.

after performing a few times, i started aiming more for coherence, re-ordering to try and link the thoughts into a series of almost self contained little poems. but you can’t herd poets so generally i fluctuate between these two poles never fully committing either way. perhaps to the project’s detriment. who knows. i’m just an artist. i don’t have to make sense.

i also write little blog posts inspired by the day’s poetry. and i sometimes make spoken word versions of bits from the poem, and videos, and these things can be found on spotify, youtube, apple music, all those things. and that’s what the love epochal is.

haw yuppie

i shout haw yuppie at a prefect 

on a flip phone

citizenship is over, 

we are now brand ambassadors

sold off forever, 

forever strong and stable

wrap up warm for the gilet years

lasagna al forne and an afternoon of beers

it’s like 10 thousand spoons 

when all you need is the bus fare to partick 

ah well, we’ll get there in the end

how come nobody says yuppie any more? is it because social mobility was like a once off event that only benefitted a small number of baby boomers?

remember when only poseurs had mobile phones? remember when it used to be very difficult to find a recent enough photo of yourself to use as a profile pic? i was just flicking through my photos there, and they are thin on ground until about 2010. very little record of my many fashion missteps over the years.

echolalia

echolalian 

echo-location 

finds me where?

a lack e acumen; 

black pepper and cumin

or is it turmeric? 

i use all three for safety and

dod on and dod well, 

two is too many bills

moving like a statue, 

a foot-soldier, 

mystified and amused

das kapital 

to cap it all

ex marx the blues

a lot of my poetry comes from echolalia. daft little phrases just get stuck in my head and i want to say them just for the pleasure of the words moving through my mouth.

moving like a statue was a funny thing i heard in a podcast. the speaker meant that they were moved to an emotional response, like they might have on seeing a great work of statuary. but i heard it literally, and my brain said no, statues do not tend to move.

waiting

i wait on a call 

and fret on making a call, 

feeling powerless, unable

and this is what i mean 

when i say i’m strong and stable

wrap up warm for the gilet years

lasagna al forne and an afternoon of beers

it’s like 10 thousand spoons 

when all you need is the bus fare to partick 

ah well, we’ll get there in the end

i had a job interview. i was waiting for the news. i’d had a couple of disappointments. didn’t want to get my hopes up. but had a good feeling that i dared not develop. 

this is the first chorus of part three – which we are calling giletdonism. 2024 had been rocky and i was planning for a somewhat cosier year to follow on.

time, again

we feel like time is all we have

when we are under its spell. 

but we could abolish it

now, 

not tomorrow, 

neither yesterday, 

in the universal now.

clocks and calendars 

are metaphors for our 

warped perception of a dimension

that we can not comprehend.

the earth is forever moving in space, such that the events of last week took place literally millions of miles away. are time and space one and the same? does time mean anything at all, on the universal scale? time is relative, even within a single planet there are an infinite permutations of 12 noon. in britain we run with greenwich time as a compromise to keep the trains punctual. but the sun isn’t directly overhead in greenwich while it’s immediately above lerwick. 

obligation 

as a child the buildings 

and roads scared me

in their scale

the work of a million lifetimes,

where did they come from?

and what was my obligation?

all my life i’ve suffered

discrimination

just because i’m shy and lazy. 

and inattentive

imperceptive, defensive

and stand offish

and prone to mischief.

i am terrible at job interviews. i am naturally averse to self-celebration, and not fast at thinking. a bit overly literal. dumbfounded by even the most predictable tell me about a time when. however, there is one question that i could answer endlessly – tell me your greatest weakness.

reverse engineering

every poem, novel, recipe 

and joke 

exists quiet in the ether

the poet doesn’t create 

she discovers; 

with a notebook she uncovers.

a subterranean homesick miner,

reverse engineering the blueprints

of a universal designer

in a universe without life, does maths exist? does moral philosophy? do poems only exist after the are written? or are they just waiting to be found?

now is the time

i’m a basic bitch consumer 

i just wanna be humoured 

eat this pish 

it’s a fancy foreign dish

while i appreciate expertise

i’m keener to fetishise  

passionate begginerism

call for a strong and stable new era

are the good souls ready 

to forget forgiveness 

and embrace the love 

that burns old epochs down?

dear reader: we embraced the love. it was a shame to burn the old epochs down. but one must live now, in the present. it’s the only show playing.

and aside from one final chorus, this is the end of part two of the love epochal. and it’s a happy ending! please join me in part 3, giletdonism, in which i start a new job, embark on a career as a poet and writer, and embrace gilets in my casual wardrobe.

inconclusive, in conclusion

anyway, that was yesterday, 

with that we close the chapter

for now the winter sun flits 

over scarecrows, toclips and frosty nips

and it all begins to feel conclusive 

but then the things as usual 

start to get ambiguous

and once again of the good souls 

we must ask forgiveness 

my on and off girlfriend and i were finally turning the dial fully to off. we were taking active steps to move on. it seemed like that was what we were going to do. i decided i would focus more on my housework and compiling my personal archive. play more melodica. but as usual. the temptation to check in arose. on both sides. and we weren’t sure of our relationship again.