Back when we first met I said I wanted to read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and you questioned my moral guiding principles, the state of my current health and suggested no remaining wit. 20 years later the book is still unread and you spend you days vlogging trending tips to the credulous.
They said we were like two peas
In a pond, large enough
To never meet
To never greet
The other pea no matter how sweet
And so started the year of painful jealousy
They said they were like two peas
In a pod — but we were swimming
Our independent strokes
Made waves in a pond large enough
To never meet.
I thought about asking the boy who had been hugging me for the last 23:59h if — … there is a limit to the duration of a hug before it becomes a Clingon. I restrained myself as I new the answer already; I had heard it many times: No! Cuz hugs are Jaysome, and Jaysome is infinite! I thought about asking Charlie how I might remove the glue but reckoned she was happy with the peace and quiet of Jayvoid.
I have resigned to only one
Hug a day,
Because the rulers say
I need only one
Hug per day.
I have resigned to only two
ComplaInts a day,
Because the rulers say
I need only one
Hug per day.
I have resigned to only three
Poems a day
Because the rulers say
I need only one
Hug per day.
I have resigned
To discard twice a day
Any complaints conveyed
Through poetry.
As the world dies
I die with it,
My sap sets
In a public puddle
Around Marble Arch
Beyond the Reform Tree
Along the Serpentine
To the Corner and the Broad Walk,
I speak my mind in a dying world
Unlike those that went
before me
I carry little weight,
I claim to be
No Marx
No Orwell,
Nor make an impact on the world
Like Callinan
Like Marcantonio
Like Quinn.
In the sunset I wonder
About a dying world & a dying man,
Who dies first
& if it really matters.
Marginal Peripheral Anomaly
Cycling the circumference of the greener world
Greener grass and greyer moss
& by a punctured ego
— flattened
Marginal Peripheral Anomaly
Meeting the force of familiar faces
Blending foreign spices
& happy local hops
Marginal Peripheral Anomaly
Bidding last farewells
As years turn to seconds
& no rain fell on the fellows
— feeling strangely akin.
& the Demon of Time stalked the young man heading for home where greener pastures awaited, of that he was sure.
Along the winding promenade by the cracked grey Vanishing Lake.
Through the silent Forest of Old, where smouldering pines coughed and snored.
Above the tickling trickling streams of silver where gold was found and the rich got richer.
& the Demon of Time stalked the young man who never knew the dangers — of not looking back.
I will never tell my loved ones
My woes and struggles with life,
The success they saw
Came at a cost; never tell
My loved ones
I produced three offspring
But not a single child; never
tell a loved one, because
There are none.
