Hello! Who are you then?

It's the Christmas holidays : ) Off to Saddleworth tomorrow. Won't see Phil for a bit so here is a poem featuring him. But mostly it's about ME.



Hello! Who are you then?

You know how
When you meet someone new
You can tell you
Really like them
When you keep bringing them
Up in all your conversations?

(At The National Gallery,
Looking at Renaissance masterpieces,
I said,
'Phil draws...')

Well
You can also tell
Because you do the same thing
When you're with them
But about yourself.

Trying to fill in
As much as possible
As fast as possible
By spilling out
Random anecdotes
From your past
Regardless
Of immediate relevance.

'We used to always
Go to France...'
'When my grandparents
First met...'
'That's so
Romantic.
My grandma
Lives in Coventry...'
'At my friend's
Stag party...'
'I'd love to go there...'
'When I was last in Tanzania...'
And so on.

So really
You get to
Meet two new people
(One of them is you).
Oh! You can say
So that's
Who I am,
That's the way
I talk
And laugh
And these
Are my formative
Memories.

How interesting.
Hello me
Who are you then?

14/12/10

Tonsils!

I've been feeling like I've got tonsillitis. Or possibly laryngitis. I don't have any poems about my larynx. However, I do have one that features my tonsils.* (I've been waiting for a way to crowbar this in... Almost makes up for having SUCH a sore throat.)

Just a check-up

I could sense 

Your shape:

The unmistakable white shape of you,

As you prepared 

And then approached

While I lay,

Wordless, waiting.

You came closer

Then slowly

Bent over

To check for cavities

In my lower molars.

Your moustache twitched

As you chipped

Away at the plaque

Encrusted on the base of my incisors

You were chipping away at my heart.

My tonsils flirted with you

Slightly swollen red harlots

Inflamed and 

Unashamedly pulsating

In glistening nakedness.

‘Any problems?’ you said.

‘Ungh ungh ungh,’ I replied.

As saliva dripped

From my loose, impotent lips.

(You didn’t

Wipe it off.)

‘Take a rinse,’ you whispered.

But the taste of you

Stayed behind.

*While the tonsils in this poem are based on real-life tonsils, the context is entirely fictional; my tonsils have never, as far as I'm aware, flirted with any dentist, moustached or otherwise.

The mess...

I wasn't going to post anything today but Sally's just emailed to say she's enjoying my poems, hurrah! So, this is for Sally.* And also for me.

The Mess

Don't let the mess

Depress you,

I said.

And don't think you need to impress

Me (or anyone)

With a tidy room

Or a tidy life.

It's OK

To be messy.

And if you have the time

To clear everything away

That's not

Necessarily

A good sign.

The mess is benign.

15/11/10.
I've just done that thing where you look too closely at a familiar word and it becomes absurd. Messy, mess, mess, mess, messy mess, messiness. Gahhh!
*Not because I think she's messy! I just like her and I also, separately, like this poem.

(I have)

Look! It's Sunday, and for once I HAVEN'T written a depressing poem about feeling depressed on Sundays! Instead, here is one about fruit:

(I have)

Have you ever been
Seduced
By a nectarine? (I have)

A lusty, juice-bursting invitation to sin,
To sink
Your teeth in,

Pierce its delicate skin,
Send sweet streams
Oozing
Down your chin.

Best not to offer it to guests
Unless you've tamed it first,
Chopped into decent, mouth-sized chunks

Hide your sticky fingers
(When no one's watching
Lick them clean
One
By
One.)

Secret soup

Phil just admitted, I quote: "The extent of cooking of the vegetable stew first time round means that when re-heating from frozen, it's pretty much soup."

I knew it.

Secret soup

He said it was a stew
But I knew
All along,
That it was in fact
Soup.

Because Phil LOVES soup.
He 'eats' it daily.
He enjoys spoons,
I assume,
And dunking
Bread.

So I knew
As he added more veg,
'This is just chunky
Soup!' I said.

But no, he replied,
It's stew.
Now let's leave it to soup
- I mean stew -
In the juice
For a while,
Until it's blender
- er, I mean tender.

Whatever it was,
Was delicious

(It was soup).

10/12/10.

I wore these today

New Trousers

So I've got these new trousers
They're green
And tapered,
Shaped
Kind of like jodhpurs
(Very 'in').

They accentuate my bum
And come
Up to where waistlines used to be worn
Back when mum
Was younger.

They're good for cycling,
Ready clipped-in
Round the ankles

And they make me feel thinner,
I think.
(They do make my bum bigger,
But it's really
My tummy
I worry
About.)

Well, ok,
So I may not have the figure
To really pull them off
But fitting in
(In them, not in fashion)
Is the main thing, I reckon.

And size 12 is alright with me
(Who wants to be a 10?)
So thank you, H&M.

22/11/10.

I heart... cycling

Got a flat tyre today. Rubbish. : (
I wrote this on a day when I was feeling happier about my transport situation...

Cycling

Thank goodness for cycling

In London

At nighttime.

The city,

All lights,

So pretty.

Later the better:

Clearer roads

Clear my mind.

Known routes soothe

And views

From bridges

Make me stop

And look

For someone to tell or show

Then aloud to myself,

"Too beautiful, too much"

And off I go.

26/11/10.