You’ve just had two hours of chemo
and an injection of white blood cells.
And you’re jumping out of yr skin
Where’s the party ? you say.
Where’s the party?
But there’s no party.
There’s only the house meeting.
That will do, you say.
You can turn that into a party.
I have a rare blood disorder.
I can’t remember its name.
It’s a long word beginning with W
and it’s not a cancer.
It’s an indolent disease that has taken nine years
to get to the stage where it needs treatment.
I’m having a bone marrow biopsy on Friday
to determine what needs to be done but it will involve
some chemo.
On top of this I’ve had a bad cold which really
knocked me around.
Cold sores galore. Unable to shave.
Is anyone listening ?
And if that isn’t enough I’ve got a lump
on my forehead, a conical angry lump
that makes me look like a Tod Browning freak.
People stare.
Booked in Tuesday with the skin specialist
to have it removed.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another
I wish you all good health for ’23.
*pic courtesy of pinterest
Siberia
We arrived late at night. That may have been the reason.
Or maybe our reputation preceded us.
Either way we ended up in Siberia, Room 313 , the furthest most room from the front desk, next to the storage area.
Adele, the desk clerk, wasn’t much help. In her effort to be genial, she often hit the wrong note.
Eventually, we got our keys and lugged our baggage down the long, long corridor, the shadows across the carpet hulking and ominous.
By the time we got to our room we were stuffed,
We stripped off and hopped beneath the covers of the king size bed.
That’s when I realized we had company.
The figure beside me shifted uneasily
I had just unzipped at the left urinal when he took the one next to me, even though the one on the right was vacant.
We were shoulder to shoulder. We were that close.
He had bright orange hair like Mick Hucknall from Simply Red.
I hummed a few bars of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now’ just in case but there was nothing.
Hi, I’m Charlie, he offered.
Umm, I’m John. We don’t have to shake hands do we?
No, of course not, he said. You come here often.
Only to pee, I said. How about you?
Yes, much the same.
Then we both entered the zone, quietly exuding, self satisfied sighs.
We must stop meeting like this, I said wryly.
Then he zipped up and went to the basin and when he had gone I did the same.
This does not happen to me often. In fact, it was the first time which is why I’m writing about it.
Weird, huh ?
Pounding the pavements of Portland,
grim, gaunt , hunch-backed,
Matthew,
no singing, cheery, Disney
hunchback of Notre Dame
but a
bandy-legged, bushy eyebrowed,
Quasimodo, orange vis jacket
looks like an angry bee.
Seven year olds will always ask, at some stage when you are least ready for it, the mermaid question.
Granddad, Tina asks me, how do mermaids go to the toilet?
While you are grappling with this one, they ask another, THE BIG KAHUNA of questions, usually in the car while you are driving them to or from some event:
Grandad, where would I be if you and grandma never got married?
It’s the sort of question you need to pull over the side of the road for, but I kept on driving, hoping an apt answer would ‘pop’ into my head. Where’s the Muse when you need her? Surely she’d good for things other than poetry.
I don’t know what you would have done? I mean, how do you answer a question like that? There’s an obvious answer but that might depress the hell out of her, Who wants to be confronted at that age with self obliteration? And there’s the ontological answer but she wouldn’t get it.
I thought I’d go with the mermaid answer. That’d be the easier of the two …. maybe.
I get a phone call at 3a.m.
Who calls at 3a.m?
You think the worst.
I glance across at the screen.
The call’s from Algeria.
I don’t pick up.
I don’t know anyone from Algeria.
I used to get phone calls from ‘my mate’
in Mogadishu asking me how my bank account’s going
but since I told him I’m a pisspot he’s stopped calling.
But Algeria?
I don’t even know where the fuck it is.
Africa somewhere?
But here’s the funny thing.
It rings three times then silence.
What’s the point of that?
Is it a scam?
How can you scam someone unless you speak to them first?
Perhaps he’s inordinately shy.
Perhaps he’s a mute.
Perhaps he only speaks Martian.
I knew a young man once, Simon whose father was the Lord Mayor of Mars but that’s another story.
I look up Algeria on the map.
No clues there.
But he’s there. Somewhere.
On his cell phone.
Now who shall I phone tonight? he wonders.
Whose puffy slumbers can I puncture?
Bizarre.
Tyson was a book worm. He burrowed into books, into their worlds where, if he was allowed, he would wander for hours in their dreamy, eerie landscapes. But he would forget things. He would forget where he left his slippers, his school bag, the present he received from Aunty May [ which wasn’t a book] for his birthday. Honestly, his exasperated mother would say, you’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on. How silly, thought Tyson but the next morning when he went to clean his teeth, he looked up. A pair of eyes on stalks starred back at him from the mirror.
can you add a caption to this photograph or even the first sentence of a story? how about the next? get weird as you can 🙂
I saw the sign out the front, I say. I was intrigued. So who are you?
I’m The Next Big Thing, he says.
Can I get your autograph then?
That’ll be five dollars thank you.
Five bucks?!
John Travolta charges 200 for his.
But he’s someone.
Did you read the sign?
Yes.
Well, I’m The Next Big Thing. You’re getting it cheap. When I hit the big time ….
Okay, I say, I see your point, handing over my five bucks.
John Malone 