A Message

If you were to tell my sons

what a calm and fair-minded man I was

when seated behind the wheel

of a moving vehicle

 

they would take this as proof of the existence

of at least one parallel universe

and ask you what other me-related miracles existed

in the realm of your alternative reality.

 

Perhaps this other me would be capable

of listening to Today on Radio 4

without expressing the wish

to hurl the offending radio

at an innocent kitchen wall;

 

and he wouldn’t rant about the vacuity

of the interviewer

and the transparent dishonesty

of whatever charmless airhead,

 

masquerading as an MP, was on air,

to vomit out some unconvincing defence

of whatever shambolic government policy it was

that said fraudulent mediocrity

was pretending to care about.

 

Maybe this imposter,

for he certainly isn’t me,

could watch a psychological thriller on TV

without exclaiming, ‘Well, he obviously the bad guy!’

the second that a shifty-looking actor

hit the screen.

 

I would hope that you could explain

that this non-me-me

had learnt to be more consistent

in his musical tastes,

having realised that there isn’t enough

cognitive dissonance in heaven and earth and space

 

to accommodate the notion that you can like

both The Smiths and Duran Duran.

 

But you won’t tell my sons any of this,

because parallel universes don’t exist,

and, therefore, neither do you,

and I will forever remain

what the psycho-analysts refer to as

 

a work in progress;

 

and my sons, as they gain that self-awareness

which only comes with age and experience,

gradually realise, to their disappointment,

that the apple never falls

very far from the tree.

What Are You?

  

   You are the music while the music lasts – TS Eliot

 

The sunset while the evening fades,

the stars which shine in distant galaxies,

the smell of fresh-cut summer grass,

the autumn wind upon your face,

the mountain path upon whose surface you ascend,

the universe and everything that’s in it.

Let’s All Kill the Workshop Facilitator

The world is peopled with linguistic dunces;

fools who do not appreciate the true nature

of their own foolishness,

which is to stab their mother tongue in the back

every time they open their moron mouths.

The clumsy word assassins. The meaning murderers.

Timewasters extraordinaire.

Those whose self-appointed task

is to transform the language into a wasteland

of bombed out ugliness.

To listen to them

is the auditory equivalent

of having to look at a skyline of modern architecture

for your summer holidays.

Are they unconsciously playing a game

of Who Can Confuse the Listener the Most?

That the world of chrome and glass

lionises these lunatics

is, as they would say, on point.

After all, aren’t their hearts made of

the same plastic as their credit cards?

Aren’t their smiles as authentic as a Happy Meal?

At least their disdain for beauty in all things is

consistent.

Look at the buildings they inhabit

and realise that it couldn’t be any other way.

Everything’s infected now, even the world of poetry.

Poetry? Pah!

Nascent poets,

if you think that you need one of these fatheads

to provide you with inspiration,

in the form of a gormless writing cue,

then I have some bad news:

abandon writing, it’s clearly not your thing;

you may as well take up something

like hammering nails into balloons,

rewiring all of the apples in your fruit bowl,

or building a full-size model version of your house

out of cat hair and resentment.

Hey! I love your poems, man!

Where do you get your ideas from?

‘Oh, them,’ you should say. ‘Well,

like all of the world’s greatest artists,

I get my ideas from a Workshop Facilitator.’

The eulogy for the slow death of civilisation

is being delivered ten thousand times a day

in order to facilitate an optimised future going forward.

Drunku (v)

I have learned from much

experience that

I will never learn.

Clock This, Clock

I glance at the clock,

not because I want to see the time,

and thus calculate how much of the day

I have already expertly wasted (all of it)

 

but simply because it is there.

‘Shut up,’ I say to its impertinent silence.

‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you

that it is rude to point?’

I seem to have it in for the clock today.

 

‘And what sort of face

has three hands anyway,’

the anyway pointing to my petulant mood,

like the clock pointing its accusing hour hand

at the number eleven.

 

If the clock is aspiring to be some form of

Hindu clock God, it should give up now.

Three hands is not enough hands

for such an endeavour

and it’s never going to work.

 

I replace the clock

with a hand-painted Italian plate,

artfully depicting a Tuscan scene,

having decided that, for today at least,

I am in the mood for something timeless.

Irrational Declensions (viii)

I am masterful

You are domineering

S/he is a bossy-boots

Irrational Declensions (vii)

I am well-read

You are pretentious

S/he is a pseudo-intellectual

Irrational Declensions (vi)

I have clinical depression

You aren’t much fun

S/he is a moody cow

Irrational Declensions (v)

I am colourful

You are loud

S/he is garish

Irrational Declensions (iv)

I persevere

You cling

S/he just can’t let it go

Irrational Declensions (iii)

I am single-minded

You are stubborn

S/he is intransigent

 

Irrational Declensions (ii)

I speak my mind

You are tactless

S/he is a nag

Irrational Declensions (i)

I am reserved

You are shy

S/he is clearly autistic

People Aren't Lentils

Meandering through a half-filled notebook,

I find, among the many thoughts,

one, which, at the time of writing,

seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

People aren’t lentils. Insight? Wisdom?

Poetic foolishness? All three or none?

For a moment, I wonder what it was which

inspired me to write this stupid thought.

 

And then I remember, but before

I start to fashion my explanation

in verse form for this astonishing truth,

I decide to leave the poor phrase alone.