Poem for Long Eaton Library

We read, not to contradict and refute
But to weigh and consider, as the sun,
Picking out words in lead, walks in beauty
across new pages. The day has begun
for the three muses, just in from shopping,
looking for something to take home. Fiction.
The air rings with the sound of their talking
As they idly finger the whole section.

This is what makes us who we are. The light
Breaking through the dark glass, celebrating
Municipality. Keeping it bright.
The muses stand by the counter, waiting.
Reading maketh a full man. One muse says,
“Is that John Grisham? I’ve read all of his.”

Incidentally, how do Asda manage to roll back the prices on items that have only existed for a couple of years, like DVDs? There’s a complex construction whereby they roll back prices beyond the existence of some items to a point where the price would have been if it had already been invented back then and the price had already come down to the level it would have been at today if they weren’t rolling back the price. I suppose that the price is ‘rolled back’ to some point after decimalisation, though, or they’d be selling microwaves for £3 2s 6d.

Thinking about it, if things get cheaper over time, perhaps Asda et al should roll prices forwards so we see the benefits of economies of scale from the future. Microwaves might then cost about 3p, depending on how big you see the benefits being. Disposable fridge for 25p, that’s Asda price. Organic carrots still at premium rates though. Bah humbug.

I have too much time on my hands this morning.

The problem with writing performance poetry at the moment

is that at the moment I don’t give a fuck. Not about wars, the Tories, making people laugh, the homeless, the reckless, the feckless or the royal family. I have no interest in scoring small points off big targets in order to gain favour with a group of people who sit there in front of me expecting to be entertained with a quietly smug faith in their own alternativeness playing – if playing is not too strong a word – over their bland faces. There will be no revolution and anyone who claims to be leading one is patently lying. I have no desire to associate myself with self-promoting, self-aggrandising, one-trick-pony, I-am-the-resurrection-and-the-light-and-get-this-I’m-local persistently-local Eminem wannabes who maintain that poetry is still due to be, despite all evidence to the contrary over the last few centuries or so, ‘the new rock’n’roll’, and who only maintain this because their own observations are neither common enough to work as comedy or deep enough to be worth reading on the page. I have no wish to assume a faux-spiritual take on the universe, at the forefront of which would be some mantra/mission statement involving the words ‘peace’, love’, ‘light’ or – god forgive us all – ‘oneness’, the appreciation of which requires the same slack-jawed, wide-eyed, chin stroking reverence and lack of critical awareness found in lab monkeys the world over, and which contains the kind of jackdawed together credo of shite new age platitudes that serves only to put the user or listener deeply within the ‘look at me I am your brother/sister and I am better than you, albeit in a passive-aggressive way’ category and which should in itself be reason enough to take said person outside for a kicking, just to see how far the theory is put into practice, and which, furthermore, as any jury in the country will tell you, makes the phrase ‘gassed like badgers’ entirely justifiable. And poets who write poetry about their poetry and their writing of said poetry not to mention problems with writing it need to get over themselves. There are no exceptions. This does not make everything else allright. Enough said.

It felt good.

I was talking to somebody yesterday about broadband connections and he was telling me that Sky are looking at satellite connections. Six years until we’re looking for John Connor then. Bagsy the big gun.

I’m also stopping the running of the open mic gig at the Alley Cafe in Nottingham. The last event is on the 21st of this month. Five years and out indeed. It feels like the right thing to do. Perhaps I can concentrate a little more on my own stuff rather than hosting other people’s. Lots of regulars have asked me why I’m stopping. I’ve said it’s someone else’s turn now. Some people look a bit blank at that point. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been great fun – mostly – I’m just tired of being asked to host stuff and having conversations where it feels like someone’s talking to the gig. I seem to have partly lost the ability to distinguish when this is happening. Perhaps I’ll go to someone else’s poetry night now. After a break, natch.

This is one of those days. It’s like when you’re looking after a small child and you see no-one else. When you run into human company, you’re practically foaming at the mouth, you just don’t know it. Hair matted, bug-eyed and hopping all over the jungle, but you think you’re talking like David Niven. Simile, simile, simile. Dennis Hopper.

Which doesn’t really take us seamlessly into Robertson Davies, but there you go. I’ve been reading The Cornish Trilogy and it’s fantastic. Intelligent, wise and very human. I’d also recommend the Deptford trilogy – nothing to do with London and exceptionally good. Gets me off the Rebus for a short time. Stops me playing Pro Evo.

Must have a haircut.