Tag: writing

Time & Space

Fetch me ten persons aged eighty,

Would you please?

They can be marathon-runners

Or sufferers, wracked by disease,

They can be grandparents (or great-grandparents)

Or the last of their line,

They can be lucid, and sharp,

Or not quite of their mind.

No matter. Go, and fetch me ten,

Then line ’em up like a conga,

Then measure the line; it won’t be longer,

I don’t think, than a few metres

(Maybe more for a wheelchair or zimmer);

But that distance will be equal

To the distance we’ve strayed

Away in time

From the Fifth Crusade.

My Origin Story

Let me tell you my origin story.

Roll back your stone imagination

And grant access to this: a true Rory

Myth, the keystone to my creation.

We must toddle through time back eighteen years,

Before making swift haste to Whipsnade Zoo;

A peacock stalks my younger self, rearing

Its gross blue throat, pouncing as if to screw.

All was flurry! All was feathers! But worst

Those dozen eyes, fixed in the plumage like dyes!

My Dad roughed the bird, but young me was cursed:

A child I fell, ornithophobic I rise.

Last year, at length, I conquered the pigeon;

Perhaps, one day, I’ll manage the chicken.

Lies (The Good Kind)

The thing we must say first is that it’s blue;

Next I’d venture comment upon its size;

I fear to the ocean I’d bring nothing new

Without espousing some appalling lies.

But I’ve reasoned that lies can be for good,

And can, perhaps, point to our higher truths;

Those equestrian types would have me rude

If I dissembled not my hate of hooves.

And in this case my verbal reticence,

My sneaky sealing of opinion’s doors,

Shows that I’m conflict-shy (at the expense

Of my contempt for those who would talk horse).

So when I call the tide land’s fading kiss,

Just know there’s nothing in my verse amiss.

That Boy Needs Therapy

He was on the couch again.

He was having thoughts again.

Thoughts about killing Grandma.

Sheila inked on her Moleskine:

Primary caregiver’s primary caregiver.

They sat in silence for fifty-nine minutes.

Then he admitted: she’s old, I’m young–

I won’t succumb to her arthritic thumb.

Nodding like a pendulum, Sheila

Penned a careful addendum:

Remind Karl re: Boohoo order.

Instapoets

Keep your Facebook-tier truisms

And cringe inducing ‘poems’;

My fear is once I’m dead that

You’ll engrave on my stone:

 

here lies Ruaridh

he touched life’s

depths

he should remember

going forward

to come back up for breath.

 

***

 

My poems are strawberry handkerchiefs

(That means their proof is ocular);

But instapoets are fake deep

Like backwards binoculars.

Here’s What You Need

Women with funny hair

And raised voices?

Here’s what you need:

Another white male

To explain things:

“Besides, shouldn’t it be

Equalism? Now that’s a moniker

I could be behind.”

“Why can’t you be satisfied with better

Than then?” “You know, I heard a

Woman on Radio Ten,

Admitting biological discrepancy

Into vogue again.”

“This women’s day stuff

Just feels a bit anti-men.”

Two Gentlemen Beneath a Projector

Two gentlemen — this, at least,

We can confirm, that they are gentlemen —

Confer beneath the projector.

Whether they are here to critique,

Or come off-peak, like Tuesday noon,

Or bought out all two-sixteen seats

To secure themselves exclusive views,

We cannot say.

I only fear they come here for me,

To watch peel from my sweaty legs

The Batman pyjamas, to hear me,

In thought, curse the thermostat,

Which I am too tired to rise

And turn clockwise.