a crippling inability to accept a compliment

"i just want to say that i think that you're wonderful
i don't understand why you're not a professional"
i look at her face trying to mask incredulity
but though she's misguided there's clearly sincerity
my mind begins racing and soon i've forgotten
the myriad reasons that i'm really not one
and part of my brain that so wants to agree with her
is screaming to tell me that /is/ how things really are
a moment of madness soon cedes to lucidity
and impotent anger at my own stupidity
for daring to think that i'm out of the ordinary
that there might be anything there to commend in me
cos if i believe her i must believe equally
the many more voices who've reckoned me awfully
i laugh off her compliment trying to sound grateful
it's not really modesty just an innate wall

last night i dreamt that nobody loved me

we sat on a bench
          on the roof terrace garden
                    of a flat we would never own
                              in a part of london that probably couldn't exist
you turned to me
          with eyes glassy calm
                    like the surface of an ominous pond
                              slowly stagnating - suicide by it's own stillness
you explained it all
          saying there was no love left
                    and you couldn't believe i hadn't noticed
                              how you never returned my embrace any more
yes, you explained it all

                         away

reciting a script
          clearly honed and considered
                    rehearsed and redrafted
                              planned and perfected and plotted and passionless
you weren't sorry
                    you weren't going to change your mind
                              you weren't ever coming back
          everything was packed

          i didn't see you leave through the tears
                              flooding my vision with vaseline soft-foucs
                    i didn't hear you leave through the sobbing
but i knew you were gone


i woke breathless and panicked and confused to find no tears
i turned to check your presence and i held you very near
but too afraid to tell you that i'd dreamed my greatest fear
and trying not to wake you i just whispered in your ear

i love you

overheard "how do you make it stop when it goes blinking mad like this?"

"i can't find the off-switch"
"i didn't think there was one"
"there's always an off-switch
          - they just hide it"
"maybe it's ..."
"never mind,
          it seems to have sorted itself out"
"it always seems to do that
          just before you get round
                    to switching it off"

reasons to be cheerful - part n+1

** "not new content" alert **

there are, of course, a number of standard forms for poems; many forms date back for centuries and many are widely known. a more recent and underrated example is the "reasons to be cheerful" - a form based around ian dury's widely over-analysed classic. each stanza is formed of 3 lines which rhyme and all contain reasons to be cheerful. (in earlier verses an extra line is added at the end though i prefer to work in the later form)

the following is a collection of reasons to be cheerful which i posted on the twitter between april 20th and may 6th 2009 and tagged with #reasonstobecheerful

and, since everyone knows that what you live is at least as important as what you are like, it's a strangely personal selection


my oral fixation,
multivariate integration,
righteous indignation

skies filled up with white clouds,
playing music quite loud
(but only to the right crowd)

the new transistor heroes,
delta tends to zero,
honey nut cheerios

listening to morphine,
poking fun at your scene,
sian berry is more green

bayesian inference,
causing public nuisance,
the ii-v-i cadence

honey roasted peanuts,
si units,
"i love you" when you mean it

ornette coleman's "free jazz",
hating cameron diaz,
and everything that she has           done

folding origami,
wild boar salami,
minor wounds which scar me

blood and chocolate,
driving off the back foot,
drinking from a goblet

cute redheaded actors,
finding prime factors,
maggie when they sacked her

a love supreme by coltrane,
daria and jane lane,
obsessing over cobain

helen loves a punk boy,
beansprouts and pak choi,
bakudan poi poi

holding hands til they're clammy,
reviews that don't slam me,
um jammer lammy

swapping mixtape cds,
making strangers flee me,
boy wonder by speedy

screaming on the inside,
propositions implied,
almost anything deep-fried

turophilia,
making solos squealier,
being who you really are

wondering til your thoughts hurt,
singing like a false kurt,
pretty girls in short skirts

finding succour,
karjalanpiirakka,
ledyard r tucker

x-ray spex,
rocking out soundchecks,
far too much effects

a poem for clare

living in a labyrinth isn’t all muppets and bowie
when it’s a dark, bleak personal prison
for a monsterous chimera – so he
can’t offend the royal vision
and whilst he’s no pin-up it’s
hard to please when you’re half-friesian -
living in a labyrinth isn’t all bowie and muppets

sitting feeling gloomy, depressed and unwell
he got a visit from a man wearing hankies and bells
who said he was a squire whose team were looking for a hobby
“so come back to my village and stop all that useless sobbing
we’ll teach you all the figures, we’ll provide you with a stick
and we’ll fit you for a sash – and it isn't quite archaic”
asterion’s not as teary on his own any more
he’s a morris minotaur