I don’t write for therapeutic reasons, or as a means of catharsis.

My dad had  a  Toyota Catharsis  and it was a terrible ride, so I write for the simple reason that writing is easy, writing is a bumpless road paved with good inflections… once you don’t concern yourself with quality… or critique… or self-awareness… manage that, and writing is easy, honestly, so simple that even I can do it. Plays are hard though, as in technically, as in remembering who said what and to whom, that sort of thing, and poems, poems are hard, not just the rhyming, but the non-rhyming ones as well, and novels, they are sooooooo long and you have to be careful you don’t forget what they are about, and short stories are really hard, harder than novels because you have to say as much but not write as much… yeah, writing is really easy, really really easy.

Deadheaded Daises

She loved me best in those moments that
she forgot herself, and came to me
in the spaces I filled with cunning,
in the footprints of my stealth.
 
She loved me most of all in daydreams,
where the grass was soft beneath her feet.
and as she pulls the petals beneath the sun,
she dies a little with every fading beat.
 
She loves me.
She loves me not.
And all the more in the dust beneath her feet,
for petals only fall in need,
and I am all the need she's got.

V

See those slimy lizards in their shiny suits.
those cold blooded wizards who magically make us disappear as they stomp on our dignity,
with their tiny lizard boots.....
as the minister for killing the old
said they were fine it was just a cold
put them back into their safe and private care homes
with the jigsaw puzzles and garden gnomes
and when they die we will not count
because Pretty Patel can't add up that large an amount.
and the lizards rejoiced and were warm of heart
as they grew closer and we grew apart.
and the minister for killing kids at school
says send them back, let's end Home rule
because parents are just getting us in debt
as they learn how to do things on the internet,
the computer shows them how to be thankful,
how to get fitter, but NOOOOO,
the minister for killing our kids says send them back,
even though Corvid is lurking like a coughing Gary Glitter
and the minister for killing our kids says NONSENSE and BALDERDASH,
they are safe he says , as he twirls his serial killer moustache,
and the lizards in their nest say, well done,old chap, well done
come over here minister, and have a bask in the sun.
only 40 000 have died and so you lose some to win some
because those at high risk are those on low income
and the minister for stealing your money said that the wind in the sales will blow cheap prices away and hide our thumb on the scales.....
and when we the people emerge from the dark
to meet on a golf course or do urgent exercise in the park...
just remember that while we were all in isolation,
the lizards weren't bothered about second waves,
not after the success
of the first wave of their lizard invasion.

THE SPECTRUM OF DEATH

She took me through the cemetery
to walk amongst the graves
and while she counted all the years they'd had
I counted all the Daves.
.
She held my hand as we walked along,
as she counted ourselves lucky,
that we had come to visit with the dead
but all I was counting was all the Daves
because that's what its like to live inside my head,
.
She found a bench for us to sit,
talked about our future, how our love will always last,
and I smiled at her and didn't say,
that on the way here
thirty seven red cars had driven past.
.
She told me I would never be alone
that I could count on her,
and I told her you can't count on promises
but I could recite Pi if she'd prefer..
,
We sit in silence with our thoughts,
and I felt her heart beating next to mine,
she let me count the birds that perched,
because she knew that I'd be fine.
.
A man stopped at our bench and sat ,
he smiled and his breath was on the wind,,
a wind that chilled us to the bone,
he put a scarf around my neck and said...
"come on son, the cemetery is no place to be alone".