I barfed off and on last night
but my heart wasn’t in it.
If you are going to barf —
‘barf’ is a much nicer word than ‘vomit’ –
you’ve got to be committed,
not lackadaisical
like the time I went to the doctor
for anti-depressants and was refused
because ‘you are not depressed enough’.
I can’t give myself wholeheartedly
to anything, it seems.
‘Except your writing’,
my ex told me.
‘Except your writing’.
We were holed up under the same roof, two people who couldn’t stand each other. And we had the whole night to spend in the same one bedroom flat. I took the lounge, she took the bed; we didn’t even say goodnight. We were murderous to each other. I could feel the old Minotaur in the labyrinth of my brain, gearing up for a rumble. But there could have been blood. Pray, I say, pray, don’t let her taunt me. I was scared of myself more than her. The Minotaur was raging. Just then the door opened
Still they come, she said, the bibles, prayer shawls, letters.
People are very supportive, he said.
But the attic is full of them.
Their grief and incomprehension are still strong. Who can explain such a thing?
And the candy? Those bags of caramels. It wouldn’t hurt ….
What are you doing? He said, reaching out.
Surely it wouldn’t hurt to have a few? After all, they were meant for us.
No, said Peter Lanza, the father of the Sandy Hook killer, knocking them from her hand. They may be poisoned.
It looked like it would stomp any minute
trumpeting in terror from being woken
after all these years.
What had we done?
What if it went berserk?
Trampled on our good intentions?
Pooped all over the room?
[Have you ever seen elephant poo?]
Or, worse, collapsed on one of us like a slab
Of cement?
You could hear them growling
as they came up the street
bristling with fury
mumbling obscenities
the long angry pair of trousers.
They were rumpled.
They were crumpled.
They had had a bad night.
They did not want to be there.
On him.
Anywhere butt.
They were positively scopophobic
but he didn’t get it.
so they squinched his anatomy.
soiled the cuffs.
Had he not noticed?
But they were all he had
So he wore them
Those long angry pair of trousers.
I was beginning to inflate. Getting bigger and bigger ever since I began the list, a very long list, of people whose necks I would like to wring. It filled three foolscap pages. I have a very long memory. My fury knew no bounds. All that hate had been building up. Now it had to go somewhere.
My shirt buttons popped and the belt on my trousers flew off as if on a spring.
My singlet and underpants tore down the centre. I was butt naked.
In my birthday suit!
Then before I was about to pop, a funny thing happened. I began to fart. Not small whiny ones but big ones like summer thunder.
And a funnier thing happened. Each time I let it rip the gas formed the outline of one of my enemies: Greg, Tony, Jason, the dude who side-swiped me at the intersection, the cop who issued me the fine …..
They were anthropomorphic farts. And they stank. And they went on all afternoon.
But the good thing was my dimensions shrank, a little more with each fart. It was very satisfying. I’m glad they stopped when they did else there’d be nothing left of me. I felt so good though, once the breeze had swept away the foul smell, I tore up the list and compiled another. Of people I liked. It was very short.
John Malone 