Any battered re:

“What you can imagine you can relate, that’s all. Shame really, that that’s all. Shame. I wanted it to be something more, or else, you know, like a letter. Like those letters. Such a shame. I stroked it and it withered and died. So said the bloody seventies folk revival. That said, the beard is an improvement on your ugly earnest face. I can relate to that, that’s why I underwent failed laser treatment to remove all the hair from my face. I think I’d happily remove all the hair from my body and live like a drying fruit for the rest of my days, over-ripening plum. We can only hope that the need for words is founded in something that relates to the need for hope, we can only hope that the need for words is founded in something that relates to the need for hope. I am only your didact because you asked me to be, and I only took the task seriously because I had locked myself into some tired but enthusiastic revery. Is that magazine beside me really the end of literature? The novel is surely as redundant to the magazine as the painting is to the instagram feed. Who wouldn’t date that supple warrior? And even if the old man has steam it is nothing without fire. Death is not predicted but it does tend to mark its own. That line on the back of your forehead could really use some attention. I am only telling you this because I would like to love you but the clouds are so very high, so very very high.”

Categories: Trash | Uncategorised

Created: 2nd June 2016
Edited: 6th July 2016

Torn by Things (Moving)

Torn by Things. Objects that I belong to, that own me,
All this stuff.
People that put thoughts in my head and words in my mouth and clothe me
With clothes that define my shape, my age,
My comfort or discomfort.
An economy that measures my worth, the worth of this body.
And a society that deals with the worth of its product, the product of the stuff,
The thoughts, the words, the clothes, the body, this thing, this empty thing.
Love that claims me, respect that coats me, heavy and cold.
Scientists that steal my organs, synapses, cells, the thoughts projected in and out.
A language that controls me, as a machine.
A past that affirms control, time that dictates a future, all things outside.
All things inside belonging to the outside.
The I itself is nothing.
This is how I try to move house.

[circa 2009?]

This is a poor poem. Why? (As if you have to ask). It seems barely finished, the choice to end certain lines, with the resulting enjambment, is obvious in some places and obviously unthought in others: clothe me/with clothes is almost intentionally clumsy. It swims in too much self pity and therefore loses any inclusiveness it could gain through generalisation. This is the main criticism: it tells. Every line tells you its exact outcome. For 2009 it seems pretty tawdry. The truth of this poem is that I felt my life had lost any autonomy. Poems are often at their worst when they are written with someone in mind. I suppose I wrote this in the hope that my girlfriend would start loving me again and my friends would show guidance. It is a cringer, that’s all that can be said.

Categories: Trash

Created: 6th September 2014
Edited: 8th November 2015