Like George V1, the king
subject to stuttering
I had a speech therapist too
who taught me how
to word switch
to philander with synonyms
I could slip into
how to pace myself
and summon the scribe
of stutterers before me
Lewis Carroll
Neville Shute
Updike
& dear old Aesop whose thoughts
often outran
the tired tortoise of his tongue.
It had been bugging me for months so I took a clipping down to the Garden Centre.
What’s it called? I asked. What’s its botanical name?
I didn’t much like the sound of it.
So I asked its common name.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, the man said.
I very much liked the sound of that.
so I went home and dubbed it with my royal ruler.
Henceforth you shall be known as Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, I announced with a clipped classy accent.
It sounded like a song.
Like something from ‘Revolver’.
I’m out the back writing, throwing back a cab sav,
The royal purple trumpet flowers bowing before me.
It’s not a big backyard.
But it’s mine.
I can enter my own little world if I want to.
Don’t have to answer stupid questions about my failings.
Fuck that.
There’s a balmy sea breeze blowing
And I’m reading an article by Peter Schjeldahl
Who barfed in the bright green bushes when he came home
From a college party.
The vomit was bright orange, the sky a pastel blue.
He was amazed at the colour. Later he became an art critic.
I wrote a post about barfing in the bushes, the one before this
But hardly anyone read it.
And no, I’m not TRASHING it. It’s good !
I could drink the whole bottle of wine out here
And forget about the bushfires, the bloody bushfires and the threat of war again.
Fuck that too.
It’s good out here. So good.
I’m king in my board shorts and tank top and bare feet
under a crown of blue sky
kicking back the shit
putting it in this poem.
Perhaps I will drink the whole bottle.
Cheers.
Could you squeeze her
into a haiku? No, that would not do.
Her life was too sprawly.
It simply wouldn’t fit.
Something larger, more inclusive.
Perhaps a biopic.
John Malone 