The Poetry Marathon

I stood in a wind blown meadow
As poppies, shasta daisies
And yarrow
Played with the wind
Under a sky the colour
Of a million tonnes
Of Welsh slate
Feeling lost, beyond hope
When a gust caught me
Took my breath and reminded me
In a gasp
That where there is life
There really is hope
And the clouds opened
To turn their wrath upon my folly.
I stood, face upturned to the heavens
To greet the deluge
My black thoughts washed away
Alongside my mood
And smiled at the lesson
The flowers taught
To be is enough
To move with the wind is to play
And to receive nature’s gifts
Is something denied to none who still live
And for a moment
I swayed with the poppies,
Shasta daisies and yarrow
More free than I had ever been.

Kids were playing
In the summer sun
A soft breeze
Kissed the leaves
Of the laburnum trees
As shrieks and squeals
Of delight
Interspersed with
The excuted yapping
Of a small dog
Are all that announced
His arrival
He didn’t come
On a dark and ragged cloud
He didn’t arrive
To a chorus of terrible screams
Or the smell of brimstone
But to the peals of laughter
And the smell of fresh cut grass
He turned heads as he passed
Smiling a perfect white smile
At those kids as only he could
No rusty serrated
Switch blade grin here, then
A mother takes a photo
On an instamatic camera
And the world holds it’s breath
As the flash explodes
And faces turn to see
He watched their terror grow
In tandem with the cloud
And straightened up his tie
Whatever else
Death knew how to dress
They all agreed
On this, their fateful day
As other flashes
Like camera bulbs exploded
Across the land
As he led them on their way.

Cheese is life
Or so my girlfriend says
But she’s half italian
So may not be unbiased
If it’s only alright a sprinkle
Of cheese will help
It’s a kiss of love
That improves everything
Little Richard said
‘You toast your bread
And add sugar to your coffee
You’re supposed to add
A little sparkle to life’
That’s why there’s cheese
On pizza
To let it sparkle
And because of that
I love her pizza
And I’m getting happy fat.

Running away from
Is more important than
Where you’re running to
The danger may be behind
But you can’t run faster
While looking back
Just recall every slasher victim
Who fell while they did
A man can beat a horse
From a standing start
Over short distances
I don’t have to be faster
Than a lion
Just faster than you
If you run far enough
You’ll end up where you started
And probably die tired
The race isn’t always to the swift
But that’s the way to bet
And even a determined tortoise
Can beat a lazy hare
If he just keeps running.

Monday morning, I wake
To the incessant complaining meows
Of the neighbour’s cat,
Giving voice to the fact
That I haven’t given her breakfast.
It may sound strange
But it’s become our ritual
For her to have another breakfast
While I have coffee.

I notice that pretty much everything hurts
As I peel away from the bed
And I sigh as I silently chastise myself
For working yet another weekend,
But I know in my soul
That I’ll undoubtedly do so again, and soon.

It’s the curse you see, of the self employed,
The ever present background fear
That they’ll never work again,
That forces us to say yes
To the all but impossible.
Yes, I’ll do this job even though
I’m fully booked.
Yes, I’ll work the weekend. Yes, yes, yes, the perennial yes man.

I shuffle down to the kitchen
Doing a rendition of a zombie
From the walking dead as I do.
I open the fridge,
Take the tupperware container
And tip the smelly tuna into a bowl.
The kettle goes on and in a few minutes
I’m sitting on the front step
Watching the cat, Puka, so called
Because she’s white as a ghost,
as she devours tuna steak,
And I think to myself that I work weekends
So I can afford to feed the neighbour’s cat
In the style to which she has become accustomed.
Then I console myself
That the coffee is good,
Hot and expensive.

After all,
If I’m going to work myself to death
There should be perks.
The phone rings and in seconds
I’ve already said ‘yes, I can’.

Surrounded by mundanity
Constricted by mediocrity
Suffocated by mendacity
Given to morbidity
Absence of magnanimity
Manacled to monstrosity
Making marks mechanically
To erase again as if magically
Leering misanthropy
Unable to shake the maddening malaise
Being a teacher causes malice in me.

Spectres of monsters past
Shades of Jabberwok
And Babaduk
Visit me in the wee hours
Old monsters spent and tired
Who’ve long since lost
Their frightening power
But another monster rises up
From the depths to take their place
Rapacious and malevolent
With distilled malice and ill intent
And an all too familiar face.
I can only see him by candlelight
In the mirror past midnight
I’m deathly afraid of who he might be
Because his face looks just like me
He whispers never to fear monsters again
Those monsters who look just like men
And tells me a secret as if with glee
The most frightening thing in all the dark
Isn’t him, it’s me.

The pink flamingo
Gave me a kaleidoscope
That I might better see
The repeating patterns
Of all mankind
And their futility
I turned the wheel
This way and that
Like another little hamster
But no matter how hard I tried
I couldn’t find the answer
To slowing down I was so mesmerised
That it made me forget to think
But I knew in my most secret soul
It was pushing me over the brink
Then it came to me in a vision
As Alan Watts dressed in a kinono
Finished a lecture he had given
‘To stop the pattern stop the wheel
Tell me afterward how it feels’
And so I did and the patterns ceased
And I found myself released
Until my alarm clock roused me
And the visions ceased
And i with regret got out of bed
Away from my flamingo dream angelic
I have to remember not to go to sleep
Having taken psychedelics.

Take equal parts desire and regret
A cup of commitment
An ounce of common sense
Or better yet
Leave that til the end
Probably fitter
Or the mix will spoil and be bitter
Pour in a healthy dollop of gullibility
Grate some nerves
And irresponsibility
Turn up the heat at the start
Hotter than all hell on fire
Then add your mix
To the sacrifical pyre
Half way through you’ll need
To do something peculiar
You won’t understand why
And might feel like a fool, yeah?
Transfer it all to the freezer
Just follow the instructions
It doesn’t matter if it falls
If you want to please her.
Swing back and forth
From volcano to glacier
Until in the end
That doesn’t even phase you
Then turn it upside down
To take it out cos it’s cooked through
At that point add your common sense
And instead of beating the oven tray
Like a dead horse
Just chuck it in the bin
And file for divorce

Cook the brown
Fill the syringe
Find a vein
Not on the edge.

Sharp sting
Of anticipation
Keeps self loathing a bay
Time for time to stop
For me to go away.

Caught the dragon
That first time
Man it was good
Now I realise
Syringe ryhmes
With orange
When I add
A little blood.

Press down slow
Feel the itch
And forget for a while
That life’s a bitch.

One misery not chosen
Outside control
Swapped for another
That I can own,
That I can turn
On and off
By taking a hit,
And making
The chosen misery
Fade,
For just a little bit.

You catch the dragon once
That’s his trick
You spend your life
In vain vein misery
Chasing
That first pin pick.

That first rush
The last time
You’ll ever feel
Heaven when you push
The brown inside
But it’s your misery
And yours alone
It lies to you
Because it’s you
Being owned.