philthD's 50PoWriMo

i haven’t got time or spare brain capacity to do a NaNoWriMo, but i figured that if i can write a poem and two-thirds each day then i can write 50 poems in the month of november. please help by suggesting titles for poems for me.

a contribution to the last barman poet project

i am the world's last barman poet
i see the survivors drinking the fallout cocktails i create
all seven of us stinking - getting something i found or ate
the "sex in the shelter"
the "schnapps" made from melters
the "vermin hammer"
the "worm-a-jammer slammer"
i make things with sludge and soot
the "glowing squirrel"
the "three-toed foot"
i make drinks so sick and scuzzy
the "iced wee"
the "kami-khasi"
the "orgasm"
the "death spasm"
the "singer pore slime"
the "digger lime"
comrades, you're just devoted to ever liquid i've thought of
but if you want to end it
why don't you just drink the water

passed-up passport to the past

and we watched the sunrise over once familiar streets
aged now by the seeping spread of the suspicious stain
of progress
revelling in reliving familiar defeats
former glories insignificant as that tribute you're
always lacking
earth has moved three thousand million miles through space since then
doors to every moment past are locked never again
to open
leaves us wandering all night like vagrants - i say when
packing everything we own to carry to the future
let's travel light


[for glyn, sort of]

"are you happy?" asked arcadianlady

three small words in a simple sentence
in an empty ocean of context
my first reaction was to jump on the defence
"of course i am" my next
reaction was to focus on the worst
of my sorrows. i was left perplexed
that these thoughts - though diverse
were similarly diiferent from the real
world - each a simplistic and perverse
narrative of how i feel
each its own pretense
hidden behind its own spiel

how often do i stop and wonder if i feel happy?
how often do i stop and wonder if i feel?
how often do i stop and wonder?
how often do i stop?
how?



i used to have so much sadness that it defined a part of me
a portion that feels empty now it's dissipated
i have so many blessings and so much to rejoice in
why is it so rare to be elated?
how do i compare with those apart from me
where are the statistics collated
my mean state equates with what others are voicing
if i eschew what's skewed and weighted

exophilic

nobody ever had a crush on me

noone ever passed me a note
noone ever wrote me a poem
noone ever looked away hurriedly
     embarrassed to meet my glance
noone ever learned my details
noone ever followed me around
noone ever ran away
    when they saw me see them see me

noone ever carved my name with a compass
     into their desk
          or their pencil case
               or their bleeding flesh
noone ever sent their friend
     to tell my friend
          to tell me how they felt
noone ever fantasised about me
noone ever imagined marrying me
noone ever dreamed about me holding them in my arms
noone ever wondered what they could do to make me happy

noone ever spent an hour
     staring at my thighs
          trying to remember
               every subtle curve
                    desperate to never forget

nobody ever had a crush on me


until the subject of my most secret
crush began to stalk
me all over the internet
and hanging out and drunken talk.
she stole me and she stole my heart
she wrote songs about me too
i should have told her from the start
the way i felt - she always knew

she
make me
feel so lucky -
imagine if nobody
ever loved me

regret is the flipside of nostalgia

i've endeavoured not to have them cos they've proved no use
yet i bet we all get regrets we don't choose
seems everything i regret not doing involves music
whilst everything i regret that i did in fact do
involves girls - and most of both involve you

indefinite 139 should

mute mortified
made futilely fortified
fatally beautified
bail
abort duty
daughter deified



i don't even entirely know what this is about - i just liked the way these 12 words sounded together and tried to form them into something vaguely coherent.

green pen

you make me feel
like everything i do
with you
is better than
anything i can
even attempt
with any other implement

you make me feel
from the start
that this is art
that it would be wrong
not to pour a song
or poem
into my trivial tome

you make me feel
my tiny quirk
is a stand aganst work
because of my adoration
i'll never use you for a calculation
even if they insist
i'll never use you for a shopping list
you'll never be a tool of finance
though in the right circumstance
i may use you on the inlay of a cassette or
to set out a threat or in a love letter
if the content can just-
ify you - trust
that you'll have a mandate if
i'm feeling creative

you make me feel
you're the only stationery i adore
you've got something special at your core

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