Tag: #poetry

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.

war poetry

poets operating in your area 

have taken ten per cent off gdp

put out and pensive

(to be is to be) 

we work best from the trenches

the snipers are barely interested

in no man’s land i meander

absorbing vile inspiration

trying to get my head

in your to cross hairs

write poetry like nobody is watching, i often think to myself, as nobody watches. its a niche choice of endeavour. there are almost certainly more poets than there are readers of poetry. that’s why i make my blog posts to cutting and pithy.

as a poet

at work once an i.t. guy 

told me his wife was employed

as a poet! 

a real life poet and 

(poet and educator)

this man changed my life.

unfortunately,

via a mishandled data migration

that caused me to career

onto life’s soft verge 

in a slow motion car crash.

my poetry remains unsuccessful.

i won’t bore you with the time i took on too much at work during lockdown and ended up having two years of burnout and misdiagnoses. it encouraged me to make a lot of changes in my life anyway. i think i’m getting to a better place. its fun writing poetry anyway. maybe that will never be my profession. but reducing my hours at work has at least given me time to do it.

the you/me confusion

ou know,

when you want to please

to mask, to be accepted?

you know,

i mean, why do we say you 

when you clearly mean me?

when i clearly mean me

when i mean to say

i’m a people pleaser… 

but i’m not good at it.

do you ever find yourself saying, ‘you know that thing where…’ and then you find yourself describing your own strange anxiety or neuroticism and you think to yourself: this was me I was talking about the whole time. we talk about ourselves specifically in this universal manner. we put our situation into the listener, and ask them to empathise, and forgive, but we don’t have the strength to say: i am weak. i need your validation.

the failure and possible redemption of language

we don’t yet have the language

for the time in which we live

the 2010s, the 2020’s, 

don’t feel lived in like the 90s

like naturally stressed 501s 

two sizes too big 

in every direction

y2k was the last mass adopted nickname

there is no confidence yet

in the unfolding millennium

so i propose a radical redetermination 

y2k of d2k, 

then d2k.1, 

now 2k.2, 

or, i posit “point two” 

in practice 

i mean obviously i don’t expect this to be taken on. its quite abstract. but i hope i can at least draw attention to what is a serious problem. we can’t be going around calling this the 20’s, it’s preposterous.

but you never know. this will probably go viral. by next week i will undoubtedly be a very famous poet and everyone will agree that this is d2k and maybe even that this is y2k.25? anyway, if we are going to live in the future, we should start talking in a befitting manner.

vulvic pud

fruit forward vulvic pud, touched, 

lingered upon, picasso pubic crumb

a tender rebirth, but is this the beginning or the end,

reprise: why does your love hurt so much?

i was out for dinner with friends at a fancy italian restaurant, and honestly, the dessert was so obscenely vaginal it could not have been an accident. luckily we were are liberal, open minded people and we were not offended.

it was also a very rainy day.