Getting Through

                     Happiness & Love Skills

I see people who are apparently happy,

I guess, or some of them say that they are;

they’re in the shops and on the footpaths

and all over the internet,

and it seems to me

that the main reason why

they’re happy

is that they know how to be,

and that they probably know how to be

because they learnt the skill

when they were children,

through plenty of practice as grown-ups,

or both.

The same goes with love.

People whose lives are filled with love,

it seems to me,

had plenty of experience with it as children

in the warm bosoms of their families,

reinforced by plenty of practice as grown-ups,

or both.

Lovability,

this ability to be loved,

is also a skill,

like the ability to be happy.

I never learnt either one of them

worth a shit.

Advice to Self

Don’t reflect on it.

Don’t analyse it.

Don’t dream it.

Just be it.

               Empty Days

Days like this one,

as I key this onto the screen,

when I have no jobs in my inbox,

are definitely hazardous to my wellbeing,

as if that makes any difference to anything

except me, and I don’t matter.

Although frequently maddening,

my work also has the advantages

of being distracting and fatiguing.

Days like this one

I write verses that I’ll never get to perform

because I’ve written too many,

having had too many

days like this one.

Days like this one

I read at whatever book I have

fitfully on and off,

play countless games of computer solitaire and hangman,

and check my inbox every few minutes,

even when I know my chief editor in Australia

must still be asleep.

Days like this one

I have to do my best

to concentrate on not thinking about myself

and my emptiness and sorrow.

Days like this one,

after ten or so hours of tedium,

I sometimes get offers of seven-hour rush jobs

just as I’m signing off

with visions of wine and whisky

dominating my mind.

  Coffee, Gluten, and Solitude

Whilst watching some bullshit

world cup football match

to the droning of vuvuzelas

at seven o’clock or so

in the morning,

I found myself crying

because no one was in the kitchen

making me coffee and scones,

or was sitting beside me

waiting for me

to make her coffee

and tortillas.

                          Fixing the Fan

My early conditioning

to lack self-confidence in general,

combined with no one ever teaching me

how to do bloke stuff,

has resulted in my default setting

when it comes to simple home repairs

being to forego even attempting them.

The pedestal fan in my home office

had been in serious decline for a few years,

needing to be jumpstarted first up in the morning

by spinning its blade like the prop of a Sopwith Camel.

I’d asked my son-in-law, who knows about such things,

what it would take to fix it.

He’d just laughed and said that it wasn’t worth fixing –

that I could get a crappy new fan at Bunnings for $30.

Capitulating like that to global corporate capitalism’s

efforts to manipulate consumers

into cooperation with its waste-increases-profit agenda,

would have gone against my grain, of course.

It finally got to the point

at which I had to spin the bloody thing

for ten minutes each morning to get it to work,

and then when it was on high it was still fairly slow.

I noticed that the price of fans at Bunnings had dropped to $20,

but I decided first to take the bull by the tail

and face the situation.

I removed the blades and the collar behind them

and injected a few squirts of all-purpose household lubricating oil.

It worked a treat.

An Unproductive Pastime

It really makes no sense

to sit in a comfortable chair

by myself,

swilling cheap red wine,

while memories of

a series of women

with whom I fucked up

thirty-five or so years before

dominate my brain.

No, not at all –

wallowing in

mistakes from which

whatever I’ve learnt

doesn’t help at all

really makes no sense.

                     Clean Sheets

One Wednesday I washed my bedclothes –

that’s my sheets and pillowslips –

for the first time in six or seven months.

As an aside,

even though the forecast was for clear weather –

I refuse to call clear weather ‘fine’ –

I removed them from the line

shortly before an unexpected lunchtime downpour.

Thursday morning I was surprised to notice

how radically better they felt,

having turned sour only gradually.

                    Downtown Lunchtime

Being without an editing job

for the third of the past five days –

and the two jobs I did have having been piddling –

at about a quarter to one I got tired

of checking my inbox every few minutes

and walked downtown

to go to the library,

to see if anything on Victoria Street

that might take on an old codger

had a Help Wanted sign up –

none did –

and to buy a lottery ticket.

It seemed as if every pebble on the footpath

found the holes in the soles of my shoes,

and the aroma from every lunchtime eatery

found its way to my nose,

reminding me of how little I had to eat.

                    Deferential Till It Matters

As long as it’s a whatever (with adolescent shrug) situation,

I’m perfectly willing to defer just about anything

to just about anybody,

as what there is of my ego

doesn’t demand that I be in control or otherwise be top dog,

and the older I get the better I get

at not sweating the small stuff.

Funny what people,

including me, of course,

consider to be

small stuff,

and what falls into

other categories.

The tricky part, of course,

is when we poke about

in areas that don’t qualify as small stuff

to me

at all.

I’ve noticed, upon rare occasion,

that some people have trouble

analysing the fresh data

coming forth from my behaviour

when they step over

the whatever line into serious shit

or I perceive that they’re

pushing me around

just because they think they can,

and I stop being eagerly deferential

and dig in my fucking heels.

Even if that means me going off the rails,

… and I don’t like being angry.

            The Final Fatigue

I’m tired of having to do everything for myself

and even more tired of everything I do,

with all-too-rare exceptions,

being only for myself.

Humans didn’t evolve to live this way.

          Your Aunt and Your Uncle

Whilst throwing sticks

for my dog

in the park

one morning,

the old nursery song,

‘Where have you been,

Billy Boy,

Billy boy?’

earwormed into my head

and wouldn’t leave.

I wish it hadn’t done that.