What is it about the Mouth?

What is it about the mouth?

About putting things in it?

I don’t mean food or sexual organs.

I mean items that carry far less charge

Like food or birds.

I wrote a surrealist poem called ‘A Bird Flew in my Mouth’

But could find no appropriate illustration online.

Ditto for ‘What’s Feet Got to do With It?’

About putting one’s foot in one’s mouth.

Two fine poems I cannot post because I can’t find

An appropriate illustration even one I’m willing to pay for.

I approached a few street artists but they weren’t up to it.

I paid them 5 bucks for their efforts.

They were happy with that but I wasn’t.

Let’s be up front. I can’t draw and I can’t post these poems

Without illustrations because who’s going to read them ?

so I’ll just have to write about them:

The poems I have written but can’t post.

 

The Parable of the Breathing Tube

“You won’t even know it’s there,” said the surgeon.

“My brother-in-law sure did,” I replied referring to the incident in the ICU which I witnessed.

AS he was coming out of his sleep, he became aware of the tube down his throat and began struggling with it so violently that he had to be held down while he was put back to sleep. He stayed that way for three days.

“You won’t even be aware of it,” the surgeon said, “and if you are you won’t remember.”

I decided to go with that. In the end you have to put your faith in something.

Still, some days later as I was wheeled into the operating theatre, the last conscious thought was of that tube down my throat.

Many hours later as I slowly awoke, I remember the doctor saying, “the breathing tube is out now, you can speak.”

“What breathing tube?” I asked.

The thing is, if you don’t know something has happened to you, has it really happened?

 

* inspired by Billy Mac’s ‘A Daughter’s Love’ from his ‘Superman can’t find a phone booth’ blog

Makeovers

I am re-badging my blog from a muted rural setting to a cheeky,

Irreverent bird,

a bird with balls, moxie,

Marching to his own beat, on his own path.

A Stand-up comic

a delver of the Absurd.

Not a morose follower of the herd.

No, this ostrich will not  bury his head in the sand.

This bird will bray,

be heard,

be unafraid.

He’s my mouthpiece. Listen to his words.

Before I Met Her

Before I met her

I always laughed at cartoons

alone,

was astonished before paintings & poems

privately;

 

but now

five years later

I pass the magazine to her,

the one with the crazy cartoons.

Look at this, I say, & she does and smiles

Span our faces & rumble our bellies

like little laughing Buddhas;

 

Trouble shared is trouble halved,

my mother used to say — but Joy

Works inversely:

It is doubled when spent with another.

 

 

The Stare

“What are you staring at?”

“You,”

“Me? Why?”

“We are watching you unravelling.”

“There’s a word for that, a German word like watching people in road accidents”.

“Please don’t get distracted. Continue unravelling.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“We’ve been watching you. You won’t be able to prevent it.”

They were right. I was like one of those wall-mounted paper towel dispensers.

Once the roll starts unravelling there’s no stopping it and I wasn’t done yet. There was still a metre or more of me to go.

 

Greater Expectations

Someone once said to me, Expect the Unexpected.

It seemed daring at the time so I took it on board.

The only problem was because I expected the Unexpected all the time I wasn’t really surprised when it happened.

It was expected, right?

Life was losing its surprise factor.

I felt heavy as a watermelon.

My counsellor suggested — wait for it — Expect only the Expected.

So I do,

When the Unexpected happens I light up like a lantern

twinkle like a star.

It wasn’t expected, right?

That Helicopter Kid

There was this kid who stood at the back of the class

When I came to read my poems

And whenever I got boring he’d rotate

His arms like the blades of a helicopter

& the more I banged on the faster

His arms would whir

Until it looked like he’d take off

 

His teacher and the other kids paid him

No mind.

 

In the pause between poems he’d say,

You done yet?

And I’d say,

Almost.

And he’d say, Good and slow down.

And when I stopped, he’d stop.

The eagle had landed.

 

Whenever I do a reading I see

That kid at the back

His arms set to rotate.

It keeps me honest.

The Insoluble Problem of Motivation

 

It had been on the vacant lot next to the church

For over half a year and no one in all that time

 

Could rustle up enough motivation to mow the lawn

Or clear it of rubbish. I thought of calling

 

The number on the back a few times but just couldn’t

Get motivated enough to ring or attend one

 

Of their weekly meetings & I thought about something

A friend had said about running a Special Olympics

 

For the Motivationally Challenged but the problem

With that, I said, was that nobody would bother

 

To turn up. I thought then of the historically highly

Motivated: Hitler, Stalin, the rapacious bankers, Isis

 

And concluded that a low motivated populace isn’t

Necessarily a bad thing.

 

The Perverse Mathematics of Anxiety

Something niggles you

All week

Like a nail

 

in yr shoe

And you put up with it

That’s what

 

You do.

And then it’s all over

In two minutes

 

Flat

and you wonder

hey! why did I

 

Ever worry that?

But listen up! here’s

the sting:

 

The very thing

You gave no thought

to at all

 

burdens you all week

like an extra ball

in yr pants.

 

Life is brief.

Loosen up. Don’t worry.

Dance

The Challenge

Maybe it’s the way I look or how I carry myself

but each time I go to the service station for fuel,

the attendant takes a good look at me and says

“Have a good  day. [pause]. If you can”

as if I was constitutionally incapable of it.

It makes me try a little harder.