HAHAHAHA (moan moan moan)

It's Shrove Tuesday. I've eaten lots of pancakes and frivolously decided to 'give up moaning for Lent'. So, in the spirit of getting it out of my system, here are some hitherto-repressed-from-the-public-eye Moany Depression Poems. (HAHAHAHA they shriek, we've been released.....)

The light evening sky

The light evening sky

Said it was time for change.

It lied.

The trees were still bare,

The air

Was still cold,

I still

Felt

Shit.

The prematurely lit

Street lamp

Glared at me

Across the railway lines,

Like an unfriendly

(But honest) eye.

I wrote that about this time of year, two years ago, at Teddington station.

Burnt out

Friday night,

Ten to nine

And high time

To be home.

No

Second wind tonight;

Feel my soul clenched tight

Against anyone who comes between

Me

And a deep, long sleep.

19/11/10.

Sundays

About a quarter past four

She got around

To removing the mascara

From the night before.

Now, she thought,

I must get out,

Get some daylight, and-

Oh

It's already dark.

Sundays, she thought,

Are hard work.

28/11/10.

Now that wasn't actually so bad was it? (I am still sitting on the worst offenders...)

Bank Holiday Monday and A Family Debate

Also at Middlebrow magazine.

Bank Holiday Monday

I have cleared away
The Christmas decorations.
I have made soup
And written letters,
Filed my nails
And some bills,
Deleted old emails.

I have been to the shops
And the post box.
I have hoovered and swept
(With little effect).
I have been jogging and stretched.

I have read a novel, in bed,
Watched almost to the end
Of Brideshead Revisited

And I still
Miss you.

A family debate

For Christmas,
Grampy told us,
He’d like a metal detector.

No one was quite sure why.
Pushing ninety,
He didn’t go far,
Just down
To the shops
For the paper
And a coffee at Costa,
Sometimes to the doctor
Or the M&S in town.

‘Where will you use it?’
Asked Mum.
He seemed stumped.
‘Round the garden’,
I suggested,

To which he agreed
And Granny chipped in,
They’d once found
(Or someone down the road
Had), an old coin
And (whispering) a finger bone.

Mum was unconvinced.
‘I think,’ she said,
‘I’d rather get you a new TV.
You’ll get a better picture
And more space
With a flat-screen.’

Grampy wasn’t beaten yet.
‘It won’t detect metal though,
Will it?’
Mum had to admit
It wouldn’t
(But she bought it anyway)