My Heart Will Be Blessed

Hey hey guys and girls!

So it's taken me 'til now (21:19pm) but I've written a proper poem about things other than the shadowy women who hide in my imagination. I fell back on my favourite form, the PROSE POEM - is it a story? Is it a poem? WE JUST DON'T KNOW. So we say that it's a bit of both. In fairness, if I added a few more line breaks, no one would ever know, because my cadence is so fucking right on! WOO YEAH! Poetry Masters FTW!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. While it's about anyone working in a job that they might not be too keen on, it's going to be dedicated to a good friend of mine, who I cannot name for legal reasons, but they're definitely NOT made up. 

Day 24.

On Office Work

Another chilled out fucker of a morning. The sun is just throwing off its preshow nerves and the leaves mutter something about Pernod. A beautiful song about latent life expectations revolves in my ears while the small plastic ballerina makes me feel so terribly ample.

Someone has left a tiny shoe on my desk. I put my bag on the hook and it hangs like a German paratrooper caught in the solid arms of an oak tree, dying. I take out my paperwork and begin circling the tittles. I’m told it will help to emphasise the writer’s point.

I leave and re-enter the room. For some reason Colette is crying; that awful middle-aged, dry-crying that seems so much less real. “We’re just having a moment,” Janet says. We’re always having moments, Janet, that’s how the semantic reasoning of Time works for humans.

The sobs continue all afternoon, each one connected, jointed, a skeleton of misery scaffolding around us, holding us up as the 3 o’clock slump approaches. Oh for a mirror to smash my face through, that I might truly see the reflection of my agony.

I gaze out of the window with all the abject air of classic Hollywood. A fat dog sits by a bin, his spindly legs splayed like a bunch of keys that belong to an old manor house where a hundred ghosts have gathered for a series of lectures on spooky poetry.

By the end of the day, my elbows are flat as northern vowels. I try to eat a banana, but feel like it’s laughing at me. As I leave, a percussion band follows me with the sound of ironic rain. The dog looks up at me with a sad smile that says, “I used to be just like you.”

Love After Love

Hey y'all

So first off, I'm sorry I haven't really given my preamble the effort it deserves over the last couple of days. I was attacked by a plague of gnats shaped like the letter X, so I couldn't see clearly to type, but I've been trying really hard to fight them off, so hopefully things can start getting back to normal at some point. I'm not convinced they will, but we can only try, right?

Secondary apologies must apply to recent poems also. I can't concentrate to write anything very jolly right now (it's the gnats, they've chewed me raw). Tonight's poem was supposed to be longer, but nothing sounded right, so maybe it's the right length, just as it is.

Anyway, day 23 go go go!

On Darkness

The night comes in like a stranger,

fumbling over our arrangements,

our routines. There’s a whisper

of something breaking.

There’s a rustle in the shadows.

I look across at you.

Your face has become a Ferris wheel

turning slowly away from me. 

Being Alive

Hopefully this evening's blog speaks for itself. Fuck everything. Except you guys.

The Other Woman

I have been
irrationally hating school children
because they might look like she did at that age.
Those little bastards.

Indeterminate hair
and some sort of face
with an open mouth
busy eating everything that was mine.

Is Now

Couldn't seem to bring myself to write anything new today, so this is a poem I wrote last year that almost no one has read. Sorry.

Human Condition

We do not recall having been

the size of a cashew nut,

though science assures us we were.

Shelled prawns in dark soup,

we were no doubt dreaming

in escape routes.

Narrow islands of light

expanding into days.

The burgeoning medals of our eyeballs

flashed with triumph.

We were proud then,

winners.

Hearts bleat wet anthems.

The islands taper,

ready to close

as quickly as they opened.

The Strangest Dream

Hello

I'm currently surviving the day on around an hour and a half of sleep in the receipt of some rather painful news last night. Tiredness makes spelling words like tiredness really quite difficult as it turns out. Anyway, I managed to use some of that time in the dark writing today's little number. Not a talking animal in sight...think I must be coming down with something. Queue sadface.

I had planned some kind of extravaganza for the fact that I'm halfway through my challenge (yay!) but I just don't have the energy. Here, have this picture of two blobs:

Day 20, roll on two.

In Your Wake

I bob like a piece of churned up rubbish.

Your new lovers lean over the side

and vomit on me, making my struggle

for the surface that little bit more acidic.

You have set a course for sunset, and as far

as I can tell, you’re making good progress.

Is it wrong to root for icebergs?

To give my vote to stormy weather?

You were always inclined to wash over me,

but once the crest of the wave had fallen,

I was left drowning and dishevelled.

You were always a stronger swimmer than me.

The Instep and The Ankle

Happy Sunday boys and girls. I spent the day watching period dramas and tidying my poky wee bedroom trying to make space for all the bloody fan mail I've been receiving 'cause of this epic poetry trek I'm doing. AMIRIGHT?! No, I am not. 

C'mon guys, we need to find a new place for poetry in society. It's really sad that people just don't give a shit any more. Did you know, when T.S. Eliot was alive, women literally died upon hearing his name? THAT is celebrity gone mad, folks! These days, I bet half of you couldn't name a contemporary poet and then die, could you? You ought to be ashamed.

ANYWAY, day 19!

On Questioning

Someone once said to me,

“Do you think that because you’ve written

so many poems,

you’re actually going to become a poem?”

So I said, “What’s a piece of string

when two people stretch it between themselves,

making a line of it?

The answer is string.”

That person lived in my head

and would occasionally exit

via the mouth

to go about their daily business

of peeling oranges;

of shopping unethically;

of poking their fingers

into freshly baked bread.

I remember the day they asked me

if I’d ever seen an old man eating a Twix.

The thin membrane between life and death

broke over me.

I began weeping.

For My Presents

I've had a real struggle with my poem today. Not only because I'm posting it much earlier than usual and haven't had my post-evening meal sit down but also because I think my brain is, very slowly, drying to powder.

However, I'm orf out for m'big sister's birfday tonight (check out her blog featuring some wonderful artworks here: miladyprinneth), so I'm sure a wee jaunt round the finer side of West Yorkshire's night time "scene" will inspire something more in me tomorrow. 

ALSO, while this poem is about a sad day, let it be known, I am not sad today. HERE GOES NUTHIN':

Ode to a Sad Day

I was late to the party.

I brought a Kurdish woman with me,

as part of my costume.

When we arrived,

it turned out I hadn’t been invited

at all.

We went up into the mountains.

She was wailing;

long, clean notes

like a washing machine on a spin cycle.

“Look,” I said.

“I can’t help that they didn’t want me,

you weren’t even involved.

Take solace in that,

and shut up.”

Then she picked the sun right out of me

with a long finger nail

and went running down the mountain

whooping.

“Well,” I thought to myself.

“If this is life,

I ain’t buying it.”

And then I packed up my day

and went home.