Poetry 2

      Why Are You Reading This?

Sometimes the absurdity of it all

becomes absolutely clear to me,

and I wonder at the folly of writing it down.

                  Artistic Intercourse & Masturbation

I was whingeing to Martin

one day when we’d been rehearsing for a performance

about how many verses I had backed up on my hard drive

that I might never get the chance to perform,

especially since my editing work had declined drastically

since the managing director of the agency that sent me work

had fucked up its website due to his overwhelming

egotism and incompetence,

leaving me with time to compose a startling number of these

whilst sitting around and waiting for work.

Martin said something about, well,

the creative act is sort of worthwhile in itself,

but I responded that I’d rather have an audience,

as the difference between having my verses just sit there on the hard drive

and other people either reading or seeing me perform them

is like the difference between wanking and fucking.

The major problem, of course,

is that I’ve never had the confidence

to be adroit at the art of seduction,

let alone in the sense of

selling myself or my artistic efforts.

          Readings

It always astounds me

that people who are in attendance

when I perform my verses

without musicians

seem to enjoy hearing me do so.

I doubt if I would.

                           The Solstice Gig

It was just the way that things worked out.

We had this gig to perform

at a private party a block or so from my house

on the evening of the solstice,

which was the day that Martin finished shifting flats.

We never even got the chance

for me to read him the verses that I’d selected.

Since I hadn’t heard from him, for one reason or another,

by mid-afternoon,

I came to the conclusion that our performance would be cancelled,

and treated it like any other day.

What this meant, of course, was that I drank a bottle of cheap merlot

with my daily meal between three and three-thirty,

and then another one with my mystery novel

after walking the dog – between four-thirty and five,

and then drifted off to sleep.

Martin’s banging on my door awakened me.

The gig was on.

I don’t remember getting dressed, walking over there,

or setting up my music stand.

I remember seeing Vera, and that Ravi person,

but everybody else was a blur, like on the periphery of a dream.

I remember delivering the introduction I’d planned,

and wondering, as Martin plucked his bass with the first title,

how he was gonna fake it.

I don’t remember finishing the first verse,

or anything else about the performance,

except falling down twice.

I don’t remember walking home.

People told me later that, except for the falling-down part,

my performance had been a good one,

but the whole experience made me sad, anyway.

I’d liked that set when I’d put it together.

I would’ve enjoyed being there to share it.

          One Process

I write down notes to myself

about ideas for new verses

when I’m drunk,

and then complete or compose them

at the word processor

when I’m sober.

I’m not the one to say

if this process works.

                              What I Write

I unfriended some random dickhead from facebook

for engaging in some random, unprovoked, aggro verbal violence,

and in response he keyed something like,

‘Thank Christ! Now I won’t have to read his so-called poems!

They don’t even rhyme!’

I imagine he was drunk, but so what?

Now, putting aside the obvious observation

that nobody had ever forced him to read my posts in the first place,

this inconsequential piece of spleen-venting fluff

displayed a complete lack of comprehension

of what I write.

I don’t call these things poems.

Never have.

If other people do, well, they do.

I’m not going to argue the point.

I don’t like to argue, being highly conflict-averse

(unlike the abovementioned dickhead,

who seemed to seek out a good fight for its own sake).

Each one of these things is what it is:

an observation, a recollection, a description, a dream,

an introspection, a commentary, a fantasy, a rant,

or some combination of these things.

As a collective term for them I’ve used ‘bagatelles’ (look it up)

or ‘chingaderos’ (Spanish for ‘fuckers’).

I break em up into lines

to make them easier for me to perform,

since I don’t memorise them,

due to cranking out so many.

Poetry, like any art,

exists in the responses of those in its audience,

and not in what its creator tangibly produces and presents,

anyway.

           Pardon My French

If some asswipe shit-head

considers my fucking choice of words

to be ‘offensive’ or some similar bullshit,

all I have to fucking say to them

is that I’m easy as shit to avoid,

so fucking avoid me.

                  Flaunting Flaws

I read a poem,

more or less,

by Bukowski,

offering up some more or less universal advice.

It was on the internet.

I got the impression

from the number of versions available,

performed by various performers

and with a variety of arty visuals,

that it’s one of his more popular ones nowadays.

It’s only fair for me to admit

that I generally don’t enjoy

reading other people’s poetic efforts,

but Bukowski’s are usually

among the exceptions to this.

I also recall Hank giving me

all sorts of advice,

back when we drank together regularly in 1972.

Most, but not all, of it was crappy.

The poem in question,

called ‘Roll the Dice’,

is not one of the exceptions

to my poetic aversions,

and the advice it gives, by and large, sucks.

Hank sure as shit didn’t follow it.

That’s one of the things I love about Hank –

he was deeply flawed,

and flaunting his imperfections made him laugh.

Words Previously Spoken With Music

I look at photos

of past performances

and wonder, was that us?

was that me?

because the magic – for me –

of the moment is gone

from my soul

and I don’t know when anything similar

may take place

again.