All The Lovely Books

All the Lovely Books.

All the lovely books

give me black looks

as if to say,

you’re so hard to read

these days,

once you turned

to us always,

but now you

barely look.

Better

You apologize to the cat

the turtle in the tank

the goldfish in its bowl

and yr other half

in her room.

What got into you?

You’re not an IED

primed to go off

at the least provocation.

You coulda done better, mate.

You coulda done better.

Elephants

I don’t want to watch the elephants being killed

nor stare at Jason Statham’s bloodied bare knuckles on the side of the passing bus

nor listen to the bickering of the lampposts at night

the snarling of stars as their lights flash on/off like strobes

and my brain’s flickering: I’m woozy as a drink after last drunks

I’ve had it up to here, said the ventriloquist in my pocket

and why did the dish run away with the spoon, anyway?

I’m at a loss for words, says the eviscerated dictionary

and I’m at a loss for what to say next

except after the meltdowns on Mother’s Day

I don’t want to watch the elephants being killed

or see the promo of ‘The Wrath of Man’ with Jason Statham’s bloodied bare knuckles on the side of the bus

Dark Spots

There’s an ad on some Word Press posts saying,

‘Don’t Cover up Your Dark Spots’ and I thought,

Whoa, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

Keep our sins and prejudices in the attic,

not hang them out like dirty linen in public,

to hide our inner trolls, I know what the ad means.

I’m not stupid. Just got carried away by the metaphor.

And anyway I almost put up a post yesterday

Revealing a darker, nasty side of me but my therapist

Urged me not to put it up, that there are dark spots,

she said, that are best concealed.

• Tribute to Blenholt by Natalia Zaratieger on Pinterest

Recklessly Dumb

When I get burned

by love

spurned

like an old glove

ghosted

I want to be

a pachyderm

an elephant

or hippo

thick-skinned

numb

but for an artist of any kind that’s

recklessly dumb.

What the &%%^&*& !

Look, I’m sorry I have to show you this but I deliberately left it blurry so you would not have to confront its ugliness.

No, it’s not a mouse or rat that the cat I haven’t got killed.

It’s an ugly mass of dust particles that we call ‘fluff’ in this neck of the woods.

It’s what the cleaner left in the bedroom wardrobe after I had paid him sixty bucks for doing ‘such a superb job’ [my words]

It was like the shower scene in ‘Psycho’ for me where instead of being confronted with a blade I’m confronted with a rat-sized piece of woolly fluff.

I almost fell backwards and yes I did utter the blanked out word above and I photographed the evidence straight away.

I just had to tell you about it and I feel better already.

Get thee to a rubbish bin, I said, and to its credit, it hopped in the one provided.

The funny thing is, the rest of the house is spick and span. So how did he miss this?!

and btw I’ve just been informed this is my 500th post 🙂

• have you ever had anything like that happen to you?

The Moment

Whales!

I heard there were whales lunging out of the water

At Henley South,

“sleek and smooth as peach slices”,

One eye witness said.

I finished what I was doing and went down

For a look.

But the sea was flat and empty.

There were only a pair of cyclists on the other side

Doing up their clips

And a pelican amongst the gulls gazing wistfully to a spot

Where something might have been.

No sun was out. The sky was whale-grey.

I had missed the moment.

Courage

Sometimes I put up a post and no one visits.

No  ‘likes’.

No ‘comments’.

There is a terrible silence.

I’m like the wallflower at the dance.

The cheese that stands alone.

.I shrink. I shrivel.

I want to run, hide.

I’m the cowardly lion.

I panic.

I take the post down. I ditch it.

You must have noticed..

But once in a while, like my ‘Desecration’ post on Big Blue Mouth,

I leave it.

I stand by it.

I stand up for it.

Damn it all! It’s good, I say

Sometimes I have courage. Sometimes I don’t.

Shame

From a corner of my mind it came

a timid little mouse called Shame

no one suspected no one but I

yet I saw it clearly with its ruby eyes

 

looking all around , urging a retreat

its grey fur twitched , its tiny heart beat

you can’t be seen with her like that —

the thought pounced on me like a black cat

 

& so , it implored me to do as it bid

& though no one knew , to my shame I did

 

• illustration from Wikimedia Commons

Soap

 

She had just come from the clinic from seeing the care nurse and seemed a little flustered.

Everything okay? he asked.

There was a medical student there. I said to the nurse I didn’t mind. He was neat, presentable, well spoken and was totally okay except for the fact he kept adjusting his crotch.

Perhaps he was just glad to see you.

That isn’t even remotely funny. Not these days.

Sorry, he said. I’ll be back in a minute.

Where are you going?

To the bathroom. To wash my mouth out with soap.