Excerpts

These pomes are from a collection called 'The Ramblings of a Long-hand Typist'.

The theme of this collection was loneliness and impending death. They are old, circa 1997. I think.

Don't It Just Get You Down?

The son-of-a-bitch screamed at me from behind the glass counter.

"Hey, Gypsy. You gonna pay for
that or just look at it like you don't
know what to do with it?"

I placed the toilet roll back down on the dusty shelf
and headed for the exit.

No one needs a shit that bad.

Least of all, me.

--

If You Sit In A Room Too Long You Begin To Consume Yourself

from the inside out/
start at the bottom
work up/

most butts
are better public
speakers because
the mouth has learned
to lie/


scratch your head
or
pick your nose/
wipe your skin
with
fresh but dirty clothes/

release me
release me
parole/

I have paid my dues
chewed the news and
spit out views/

you don't understand
how long the room has
enclosed
supposed?

not enough/

Feels like a coffin
a coughing/
choking
splutter

a gutter
from which I
can't be pulled/

my legs have gone
consumed from the
inside out

fake a smile/
and pray:

that makes it all purposeful/

purpose: fool.

--

Away

As the sun
washes the horizon

as the ground
succumbs to
its embrace

my boat of thoughts prepares to sail.

The things left
behind cry as I
go away.

As the leaves
turn from green
to brown;

as the clouds shed
their tears.

I travel onwards
through the oceans
of belief

the gulls up
above are chasing
me away.

The fires burning
deep within

the rain pours
from the flooded heavens

the ground
sweats the stench
of armageddon.

I am shipwrecked
on a bed of nails.

are you satisfied?

--

Life Is Just Another Misspelt Horror

1.

It is all going to fade away
the day, the night, the light
upon which we all depend.

2.

The letters pile beneath
my feet as I spy through the
letterbox at the outside world.

I talk to myself: what do you do?

3.

Carriers of disease sink into my
room bringing songs of bastards
and saints...

They're all the same: saints and bastards.

And my glass is refuelled.

4.

My lungs fill with smoke
and I cough across the
back of my hand and
remember the Parisian
streets and how, when it
rained, they reminded me
of Venice.

It is so peculiar.

5.

Nothing more to say
The bed is cold
now
and the planet is
dying

6.

I, too, wait for death.

--

The Ramblings of a Long-hand Typist

sleep a little in the day smoking forest fires; tupperware
parties for thin, lost housewives in superficial daytime
television true-to-life bullshit. ashtray overflows: the only
other butt I touch apart from my own. the day is slow the pain
is slower; little do we know it's creeping up fast to take us
on the next bend. a hairpin sticks into the sole of my foot
but I don't own it
screamscreamscream
there is nothing wrong?
who are you trying to kid senseless beauty?

nothing flows now the
river has bled into the sea: the drought causes dehydration in the monsoon. the years are now unseasoned foods; the throat clenches; fist; on water that dare to replenish.

sometimes mad; sometimes funny.

always incoherent.

--

Flutter

I turn away
to spit out
the loneliness
but the wind
blows it back
into my hands.