MATA

Suck it losers

we won

we are awesome

cause we won

look at those losers

over there

"thinking"

You'd think

You'd think, wouldn't you

That in all this 'time off'

I'd've

* Improved my Spanish

* Written loads

* Attended webinars

* Learned the uke, the harmonica, the piano, the kalimba, the mandolin properly

Ah well, you'd think wrong 

Cause it's not 'time off'

It's time on 

* Being in constant pain

* Getting knackered walking 50 yards on sticks

* Taking 20 mins to unload a dishwasher

* Taking ages to load the washing machine 

* Being too fucked to actually hoover

You know, thinking about it

I'd rather be at work

Complaining 

* That it's raining

* That it's fucking Monday 

* That it's busy

* That it's quiet

* That my back hurts a little bit, but no more than a back normally would in this weather at my age after lifting all those boxes of paper and doing all that high shelving

Maybe one day 

I'll be back

un/grateful

There's new things I can’t do like walking or working

but, see: my book’s flying

I’m not doing housework or cleaning or cooking

but it’s fucking selling

There’s no real connection, but it feels like a tradeoff

a bargain with – who? - someone?

I’ve written nowt decent for – what? - three months?

fuck this interregnum.

Codeine for the fucked back; it smooths me a little

but smothers as much

Drained of motivation, a fight to stay level

but can’t give enough

A waste of this nowhere, unable to battle

toward what I want:

Appointments ahead, Joe, so wait for the phonecall,

and keep your head up

People are shocked when they see me. I’m shorter

than I ever was

Some lose weight: I lost height. Oh how truly funny

a fractured back is

I’m waiting for respite. Stability. Something.

I’m fragile. I rust,

But my book is selling. It just won’t stop soaring:

my spine crumbles, dust.

Machete, dulled

The bramble scratch, the nettle rash,

the dulled machete’s feeble hack,

a year, a second, dizzied time,

its tendrils creepful, serpentine.

Half-drowned in dirty dopamine,

baptised by gremlin gods unseen

and devil dogs with rancid breath

scrape bloodied claws, scars snarling death.

The tangled thicket’s insurrection

thwarts progress in all dimensions;

crazy patterns, mazes turning,

muscles burning, melting, yearning

for any movement, for distraction.

Every moment, every action

trips-out troubles, tangles, tumbles;

a thousand cuts, a thousand stumbles.

A month, an hour, a life, obscene

to carry on, to writhe, to scream:

but on we must. So pain, so fear:

brambled, nettled, human, here.

The Impresario Barry Smalls

Barry Smalls had smelly balls

They stank like rancid guff

He scrubbed and scrubbed with full strength bleach

Until his cock fell off

Undeterred he paused a mo

Then said pragmatically

I'll fry that up with onion rings

And have it for my tea

Treatment Agreement

Hey! Professional listener!

Watch as I puke up scabs and scraps!

Just nod or grimace when I stop.

Trained to recognise which to enact.

Wonky steps, crude dark descent:

the pressure forces fluid from my brain.

Drill my skull before it explodes;

Oh hapful procedure! Oh give me release!

Despite me, to spite me, to kiss me, to bite me:

A feast of my metallic gristly blood abounds!

Sundry nothings from another festering taproot.

I’m such a sad, broken, abandoned bandicoot.

Surrogate mothering is where it’s at!

Tell me I’m your only one!

The hands of the clock clap me back upstairs.

I’m lost in the universe far from where we began.

Thank you for being kind.

See you next week

for more trepanation

and flirting and grief.

Loss Did Not Make Me A Believer

Loss did not make me a believer:

I wanted so much to share this 'truth':

that there was, there is, another place

where You still are and We one day will be.

And that is the case, but for different reasons

than I ever expected. Nobody knew

or knows how to react, in the face

of the rippling, crippling crime of grief:

and, sure, it didn’t make me a believer

but it whipped away the certainty, the glue

I stuck to the concept to stick it away

somewhere it couldn’t really confront me;

because I am here, the march of the seasons

continues, and life still moves on through

whichever dull drudge or exciting embrace

comes along. And I have started to see

that whether someone is or is not a believer

is intensely unimportant. And, in due

respect to those who find motes of grace

around the confusion and devastation, I leave

my dogma behind. We walk the same river

and it flows around us, and silt accrues

and traps us if we stop. So some pray

for comfort. I am envious. They seem free.