Love, As It Were, Goes On

             My Days

I now survive my days,

as I’ve survived most of my life,

enveloped by

Absence-of-Love,

shimmering about me

like a mist.

As with every human being,

though, I suppose,

I’ve always wanted

love to be present, instead.

Tough shit, aye?

          Three-Thirty Pee-Em

I was:

sitting in my plonk-book-music chair,

the image of her face

close to mine

filling my mind’s eye,

not knowing when I’d see her again.

I almost cried.

Tears actually made it to the edges of my eyes

– both the inside and outside corners.

I hate being pathetic.

                 Custody

I told her that we’d stayed together

through fifteen years of lovelessness

for the kids,

but when thinking about it later

I realised that that I’d used

an incorrect word.

We hadn’t endured a loveless marriage

for the kids, but because of the kids.

We’d remained in unhappy cohabitation,

each for ourselves,

neither one of us

willing to give up daily contact with our girls,

or to turn custody decisions

over to some court.

       Morning Into Afternoon

The longer I knew her

the more I understood

how little I knew her.

She told me once

that she considered this

to be a good thing.

I was just an accessory to her life,

anyway,

not an integral part of it,

which was definitely how she wanted it.

I was never in any position to complain.

        A Brand of Corn Oil

When I was in my twenties

I used to hear accounts,

reported third-hand

and even more remotely,

about an activity called Mazola parties,

after a popular brand

of cooking and salad oil

made from corn.

The party-goers, I heard,

would cover a room’s floor and furniture

with rubber or plastic tarps,

get naked,

pour Mazola all over themselves and everything,

and then slither around together,

engaging in promiscuous, if slippery,

multiple sexual hi-jinx.

They say that whilst waiting to die,

people who are old and terminally ill

never tell those attending upon them

that one thing they regret

is not having bought heaps more cool stuff.

I imagine that one thing

that I will regret, though,

is never having participated

in a Mazola party.

           Too Amazed

It seemed so unlikely.

It seemed so unlike me.

I’d completely given up.

I’d been comfy

seeking oblivion daily.

Oblivion had been my friend.

But then I put my faith in absurdity,

knowing that I was being foolish,

but somehow not thinking that I was.

               Reality

That’s the way it was –

she hurt me all she wanted,

but that was okay,

because she was precious,

and I wasn’t.

               Okay, I’m Shallow

The weather woman on Aljazeera has me going.

There’s just something about that

skinny, toothy, flat-chested,

working-class-Pom-accented woman

with limp, straight, colourless blond hair

that does something to me.

        Dishonest Fantasies

I’m not really close

to anyone,

even my daughters.

The deal is

that I can’t even imagine

being close to anyone any more,

not really,

although I do have an active imagination,

and have repeated fantasies

about achieving closeness

with women, real and imagined,

or one or the other of my daughters,

but I know that these fantasies

are dishonest,

being based on premises

that don’t exist in the world –

at least the one in which I reside –

just like my fantasies

about zinging shrivelling put-downs

onto people who get up my nose

or do me wrong.

I’m too fucking timid on both counts.

                      Better Living

I apologise for being sexist here,

but I really can’t prevent myself

from wondering what

that wholesome blond

TV pitch-bitch for Glad products

can do with plastic cling wrap in bed.

Please forgive me.

           Pussy Riot & Me

I’m hopelessly in love

with every member of Pussy Riot,

and it doesn’t bother me

that they have their own husbands and lovers

and that I’ll never meet any of them

because it’s not that kind of love.