The Things I’ve Heard about It.
It is a cancer.
It is not a cancer.
You will not die from it.
You will die with it.
It is the cancer you want to have
if you have to have a cancer.
It is indolent. Lazy.
And that strange name.
Long as the name of a Welsh railway station.
Waldenstrom macroglobulinaneamia.
Try saying that in one breath.
Whew.
If I were to change my name
I would change it to something
light and leafy like Forrest Gander,
the name of the poet whose poem ‘Pastoral’
I am reading now: ‘swarms of midges
bobbed up and down like balled hairnets
in the breeze’; nothing blunt and earthy,
like his nearest namesake, Forrest Gump
would write; but ethereal; I see he has a degree
in ecology and was born in the Mojave Desert,
all part of the grand design; his photo
portrays him, smiling, upstanding, arms outspread
as if ready to take off on another flight of whimsy.
photo courtesy of Ulle
I wish I had a name
something exotic like Sterling Holy White Mountain,
the name of the author whose story I’m reading now.
Not my name.
My name is bland as white bread, white as the face cream
my mother used to apply,
and shorn of all mantric significance,
It’s cute and cuddly like ‘Iggy’.
I want something mildly mischievous like ‘Flea’ or ‘Slash’.
‘Slash’ is good but I’d settle for something less edgy
as long as it was colourful. ‘Vance Blossom’, for instance,
named after a deep-pink velvet used on a sofa for the Cobble Hill line.
It is apt as I like to lounge around.
Chandler, Chandler Manning, I like — I made that one up,
the sort of guy
who doesn’t run away from fights or who is scared of lifts,
a bit like me in my more mythic moments.
We hadn’t seen each other since Covid began and had forgotten each other’s names.
It was at the gym and the pulsating music upstairs during a class made hearing difficult.
Martin, he said.
Pardon?
Martin as in Martin Luther King.
Ah. I’m John.
Pardon?.
John as in John the Baptist.
Ahh, he said.
We shook hands and had a brief chat over the music.
Henceforth when we saw each other, especially after a long time, I’d remember him as Martin Luther King and he’d remember me as the preacher who baptised sinners in the river Jordan.
*which famous person first comes to mind when you say your first name?
John Malone 