The TV was silent
but I would always keep it on
In the background
while I worked
A habit
steeped in nothing resembling logic
And there were
images of fins being sliced
And massive
harpoons rocketing past ice flows into dark red blubber
Stock footage
dropped in the middle of the fictional war movie
I was alone and so
listening to the wrong music as
Always
The words weren’t
coming
I held my breath and go get a drink
Pretend there was
something else I could do
I know there’s
rubble to clear away
Bent metal and
rebar and concrete, cement, broken glass, brick, sandbags,
All of it
And under there in
shadow on newborn grass is a voice or
Instruction of what
I’m supposed to do and how I can do it
And so I sit with
aching back and spinning head and ignore the
Madness I create in
all those around me while year in year out
I fail to engage
with what that exactly is
Or how I pull them
down into my hole
Spin them round and
spit them back out
Always working
twice as hard to
Be half as good at
everything I ever did
And that’s alright
because I know what would occur
If I ever stopped
trying and gave any of it up
The weight of the
days was suddenly also everyone else’s weight
So less important
to both you and me
A shared load of
anxiety and countdown to the end of the world
Or at least the end
of the humans
Jesus what a
delicate animal we are
Wishing for better
Wishing for more
Just one
More
And I decided to
no longer wish for anything
When a million
people all do the same thing at the same time
Yours surely
gets lost in the fog of wanton criminals
Their families and
ex-wives and dogs and neighbours and bosses
None of who ever
did anything to earn their wishes
Fuck them
They aren’t pulling
my words out from under
Whatever concrete
slab they are trapped beneath
They aren’t putting
wine on my table or an acceptance letter in my mailbox
Dear sir,
We have decided after years of
semi-deluded efforts and slightly above-average poems, to publish this one
small piece of your work in our magazine no one will ever see, in order that
you stop emailing us over and over again.
Kind regards…
Etc
I turn my attention
back and see I’m now in the company of cowboys
And brown-faced
injuns.
Dry plains and snow-capped
peaks far behind them
Everywhere I see feels
like a potential escape and
I still feel I’ll
never get anywhere but right here.