The Truth Cannot be Found in Poetry
Monday 15th February
I wrote poems for all the people who have not made me want to kill them. The muses of my past. The poems were wet, soggy and flaccid. I wrote them anyway, as if to burp up the last of the poetry in me.
Tuesday 16th February
I read some extracts of Sylvia Plath’s journal again. To think I used to aspire to sticking my head in an oven, just like her. Over what? Poems? a dead father? I felt like saying grow up Sylvia – but that would have been insensitive. It is liberating to be free of my admiration of her, I no longer need to become literary greatness and die by thirty. It has sprinkled new light on everything, even my mother seems more tolerable.
As I wrote that, she screamed something stupid about how I should get a life and move out and take the cat with me. It seems, even without poetic perspective, my mother is a dimwit.
Wednesday 17th February
Milly asked me to write a poem for her cousin’s wedding. She was hurt when I said I was not able. I am not a dancing puppet, the words do not come, how is it people cannot understand this?
Thursday 18th February
There is something wrong with people that write Haikus. It’s pointless. I spent the morning trying to write them, I thought maybe that would be a way for the poetry to come back out of me. I looked at them all, sitting on my page, and realised they said nothing. Why do we insist on writing, when a blank page symbolises so much more than all our words? Perhaps that is something to consider – a blank poetry collection.
Friday 19th February
I got a text from the man who waited for me by the Beckett Bridge. I felt it was important to remind him that we never actually met. He told me that if I was willing to throw everything we had away over logistics then I was basic. He did not expand on the basic thing, but said he would always remember our brief affair.
I should probably give his number to the police to be on the safe side.
Saturday 20th February
I was overcome with the desire to capture the world today. My words do not sit in poems. No wonder the muse had left me. I was working in the wrong medium. I had a horrible Chinese takeaway experience that made me ill. Normally I have a stomach of steel, so I felt it was a sign. I rummaged through the takeaway bags and pulled out the fortune cookies. Sometimes the future just reaches out and pulls you towards it. There it was, in black and white, the future : “Point the finger less, finger paint more.”
It was so obvious, and yet – all this fruitless determination. How many years have I cast aside in the hopeless pursuit of poetry, when I was truly meant to finger paint? That is the canvas for my soul. I will retreat from this diary. To write, is only to fool oneself into a formulaic shadow of expression. Through abstract finger painting – I will figure out this life, express this soul and more than likely, change the world.
Some People Call You Nan
(Inspired by Nancy Jane Bulfin)
You are like my favourite kind of flower
The one I think about each hour,
and I think for you’ve I’ve fallen,
I’d like to lick out all your pollen.
The Willy Wellies
(Inspired by Chelsea Canavan)
Those willy willies that you drew,
were for that bitch, that other poet,
I hope the pair of you didn’t screw,
I think I’d bring you something new,
there’s no reason for you to sew it –
that love you’ve given to the other poet,
because I’d draw willy willies for you too.
Arty Tarty Hearty
(Inspired by Gemma Creagh)
Your hair strokes the sides of your face
oh, to be wrapped in its long embrace,
would pull the chords from my heart,
and make you my own special tart.
Howdy Not Dowdy
(Inspired by Fiona Bolger)
you think you are too old for this, for me,
and such things spin my heart out to sea,
all I dream of is the furrow in your brow,
as you pen poems that turn me inside out,
feeling so dowdy, and I do not know how
to give you things you could do without.
When the Cat is Alive Within
(Inspired by Tara Khandro)
the claw of paws, is like a hand down the back,
and I’m not sure if you remember how that feels,
the quick friction in the heat of the proverbial sack,
as the cat in you rises, and the skin peels.
Feminist Rant
(Inspired by Meabh Browne)
I heard you first, most people do,
you had much to say, didn’t you,
you mentioned period blood
in a way that I think I should,
I thought maybe that I could,
be the one that bleeds for you,
if you’d only bleed for me too.
Would You Ever Shut Up
(Inspired by Stephen Murphy)
It’s either the water charges or that bloody pup,
and it makes you the opposite of erotic,
when it’s always poems and you won’t shut up,
and I just want to be made feel exotic,
But you’re too busy ranting and raving,
about a country that is not worth saving
If you were…
(Inspired by Diane O’Doherty)
if you were a piece of spring,
then you’d have my ring,
But you’re not,
you’re just hot,
so lets do this now,
while we still know how.
You Said Hip, I Said…
(Inspired by Lewis Kenny)
I could not bring myself to say it,
even though you’d covet,
every inch of my bit lip,
if I was to hop to your hip.
It Hurt
(Inspired by Alan Bennett)
It seems you didn’t understand our core
when you claimed poetry was a bore,
and still I wanted you to make me sore,
to move beneath me like an ocean,
because that is poetry locked in motion.
I didn’t forget you
(Inspired by Daniel Ryan)
It was more that I saved you for last,
a piece of meat savoured from the past,
we both know that’s how I see you,
and that’s the way you see me too,
straddled beneath your hipster sulk,
these are things from which we skulk,
lost beneath the tangle of our poetic hulk
You Didn’t Even Need a Retweet
(Inspired by Michael Naghten Shanks)
This probably comes as no surprise,
we were destined for poetic demise,
and you will drown your soul in me,
and we will breathe like it should be,
as if we have finally become one,
our bodies rise upwards like the sun,
meshed together forever more,
I’m the poet you most want to score.
