Real scenes of Japanese whaling, etc

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.

All the little things sing songs of madness

All I wanted was to see a lighting bolt. The flashes were coming and going and

the thunder, particularly impressive considering the mid-grey of the sky, shook the balcony after each time the sky was lit.

I stood looking down on all the little people scurrying back to their homes after being caught out. Always unprepared. And when they weren’t – rather than bask in it - they still retreated from the reality of it all.

I leaned my stomach on the railing and strained my eyes out and over the taller buildings to the right of my own. The clouds were darkest there and I hoped to get at least one quick shot of electricity bang its way down to earth.

Another flash from within the cloud cover, but no bolt. Damn… The rain was sideways now. I pulled my head back in, soaking wet and warm and alive.

The Chinese family in the garden below had pulled their two screaming kids from the garden moments earlier. The dog across the way that you could hear 24/7 was silent, nowhere to be seen.

It was too much to ask that’s where the next strike would hit. Still, I crossed my fingers for one last yelp and the smell of burnt hair. The rain became ocean rain and suddenly I realised its constant sound was covering everything else.

The scraping of cutlery on plates. The shake of downstair’s washing machine. All the voices – even those I love and will always want to hear. Buses, sirens, the children and the dogs and music of the stupid. All gone, though I knew, only momentarily.  All the little things fell away and for a moment I was sane.

I knew that one by one, these things would return, and mockingly slowly at that

That is not your normal – they’d say

This, is your normal

With my heartbeat and my fingers typing, the only sounds left with which to defend against them.