I am sorry
I ate the
apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries, 5 oranges, piece of chocolate cake, 1 ice-cream cone, 1 pickle, 1 slice of Swiss cheese, 1 slice of salami, 1 lollipop, 1 piece of cherry pie, 1 sausage, 1 cupcake, and 1 slice of watermelon and green leaf
That were in
Your icebox
I am very hungry
And
Am catterpillar
The gentrification of football and the inevitable squeezing out of its working-class demographic has led directly to the rise of pseudo-political grandstanding as purveyed by the likes of Farage.
Instead of being able to afford travel to away games, a few pints and a scrap with your team’s rivals, young men are following entirely more dangerous, insidious characters around. Taking the game away from the streets doesn’t mean the streets go away. It has created a generation of lads whose sense of belonging has been ripped away.
This, along with a narrative that is designed to create Bogeymen, has diverted the rage of powerlessness away from targetting the capitalist hoarders and sent it toward blameless working-class people who have been forced to leave their own communities behind.
This punching down-or-across has added irony in that the untenable situation that made people leave their homes behind is completely avoidable. Modern conflicts and wars are created by the 1%, the moneyed classes, over oil, rare earth metals, and other resources.
The game’s gone.
Every morning he made sure to sit on the edge of his bed and sob.
Just a couple of hacks, coughs of utter dismalness, whilst he allowed himself to acknowledge the weight pushing his back forwards and his head into his hands.
He growled and hiccupped and groaned and wheezed until the self-embarassment broke through enough for him to realise it was another morning.
A couple of hefty breaths from the bottom of his lungs, and he was ready for the day.
Everybody had their crosses to bear, of course. That was no comfort. Other people had lost lovers and family and friends. Sad for them, but not helpful to him. He supposed that somewhere else in the universe – maybe on this planet – another being was waking up and having a little giggle for the same reasons.
Probably someone in his ramshackle town-that-was-a-city. Possibly someone under the grey-blue slate skies of his neighbourhood. Maybe right now. A little chortle at how hilarious and random life was. Mirth response. That wasn’t a bad band name. Mirth response. Sounded like an ambulance for superannuated clowns having heart attacks on stage.
Ah, they’d say, but that was the way he’d’ve wanted to go, old Panucci the clown. Surrounded by laughter. That sounded alright. That sounded like a well-lived-life. And, of course, the great clown Panucci had a well-known and tragic joke involving mental health, didn’t he?
Yes, but actually: Fuck that guy.
No, he’d rather put a notice around his neck – tattoo it on his face – that he was 100 per cent certain he was a DNR case. In fact, rather than even trying to put him in the recovery position; instead of bothering smacking his chest about to the rhythm of the Bee Gees; and as an alternative to someone breathing life back into his lungs – whomever found him choking finally on life was to sit with him and to force out a genuine belly-laugh. That’d do him and he could go out on a smile.
Lately he’d been wondering whether his treasured morning sobs had not been about the dead people that he missed, or the lovers with whom he’d been star-crossed for a day, a month, a year, or a glance across a packed train, or the state of… everyfuckingthing. That was all sad enough, and perhaps had once been the catalyst for the two or three tears he’d shed. But these days, he was suspicious that actually he was crying because once again he’d woken up alive and still robust enough to have to get the fuck on with it.
He padded naked toward the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Black-rimmed eyes like a shit panda. Hair greying but thankfully not balding. He could probably do with a shave. He moved his head back and forth and blew air into his cheeks. The trick was not to think of any of that shit. But to consider that meant that the consideration of it was bad enough, so he tried not to consider what the trick was. He swore at his reflection and creaked rustily toward the shower:
1. Get in shower
2. Squirt mint gel on feet
3. Showerhead in hand, turn on water
4. Aim jets of freezing water away from body
5. When it warms up enough, aim at feet
6. Wash one foot with the other
7. And so on
At some point during the process, he'd forget his woes and locked into the moment. It was water, it was lovely and warm, and to stand there underneath this cleansing rain was a luxury. The steam clouds built up, and as they loosened the phlegm from his misbehaving lungs they also released a hum or a tune or a swearword or a jest or an idea.
Today the ritual bubbled up the notion that if his skin was only made of bubble-wrap he could sit at home all day popping himself stupid.
__
Who the fuck
eats plums
let alone from
an icebox
from which
you will probably
suffer
diarrhoea
Fuck's sake
how ridiculous
what's wrong
with coco pops
The current question:
Do this?
Do that?
It is the Stuckiness,
is it not?
To approach the situation:
From bottom?
From
top?
Wherever the Stuckiness
is?
Or not?
In this inflection:
It’s bliss.
It’s rot.
Always the Stuckiness
in the pot.
Always the Stuckiness,
cold
or hot.
The Stuckiness is in you:
Like it?
Or not?
As meaningless as Stuckiness:
AI bot.
As useless as your Stuckiness:
Still blood clots.
