Ditty

I’m sure you think my head is empty
and my daydreams are sordid and plenty
you’d be right, my head’s full of shite
and it’s only Tuesday, 12.20.

February 23rd

I don’t understand what leaks from your wounds
it could be blood but I’m guessing it could be something
more serious than that

like when you cut yourself and don’t realise it
until you wash your hands and it doesn’t matter
if the water is hot or cold
it stings, just the same

the water turning yellowish
as it blends with your life
swilled away by an anxious stream
desperate to make clean
and hurry away
to the sea
where the traces of you
cannot be seen.

On Progress

I’m watching him type
and I can feel his and my frustration
meeting up, going for coffee, entering a meaningful
relationship
and having kids
for that’s the same amount of time
it would take him to
type 1500 words,
shame really
but nothing is stopping him
from learning
but no,
progress is a smell
that causes him to curl
his nose
his glasses steam
and he fumes
like a dying ember
his eyes scream
“Why should I?”

Why not?

05.02.10

All this paper
each ream six percent of a tree
I didn’t work it out, I Googled it
lax net policies prevent loss of cognitive function
in my world

rapidly swallowing me up
like the trays of A4, jaundiced by time
if they could talk, I’m sure that they too
would be thinking, there must be more
was I destined to fulfill an order?
Why couldn’t I be bound in a tome?
Hey, I’d settle for a paperback these days
popular, cheap, in wide circulation
good for travelling
sounds familiar,
but then so does the ubiquitous boom
of a man I don’t respect
or pretend to,
as so many of us do
corporate niceties
slipped away one morning in the mirror
that I’d forgotten to clean
need more coffee
that I always take from the desk in the end office
not because I’m a snob
I just like the way
it melts in hot water
replacing the faint tannic taste in my mouth
which is probably the vitriol coming out

as thousands of times a day
or what feels like it
stupid questions
fill this dusty, but not unpleasant office
where people file past the door
saying “morning”
but not really meaning it
and the “goodnight”
will be the same
insincere vespers
for the sake
of civility.

Hothouse

Graphite scratching it’s way across the surface
of a pristine notebook,
diligently remembering it’s owner’s hand
drinking in facts
from a seasoned orator,
wrestling with the notions and theories
of three classes ahead

this is the hothouse
where children are dead,
where the gifted come
to crack open their heads
like eggs in a daydream
opened with force
by tutors and parents
with the best interests, of course.