A Short Poem About Living

 

Take each day as it comes

they say

open your eyes

look around

don’t forget to breathe

ah

welcome fellow travellers

it has begun again

 The Cost of Living

 

Is an interesting phrase. What happens when you can’t afford to live?

When is check out time?

Not another list of questions.

A life that incurs debt the sinking weight.

No benefit cuts here today. More books please. 

In debt and in life.

Smiles forever.

Ashes sin and longing.

Jump onto the pyre let the vultures descend.

Escape route to the astral plain.

Meet Sun-Ra along the way, he says hi.

From his cosmic contraption burning up fumes of purple smoke.

Orbiting the east London waste lands that still exist.

Cheer up everybody he says in his curious way.

Metaphysical harmony is the order of the day.

Not right or wrong just now.

Atoms breathe.

Sun rise in outer space.

 The Owl Lives Another Year. 

 

 

This poem should not be a diary entry it should not be about how I am waiting to go to therapy.

It should not be about how the noisy exhaust pipes of boy racers disturb me to my marrow each time they fly up the street.

 

It should not be about how my thoughts race uncontrollably through my body as a sickness.

It should not be about how I love my children in a way that scares me.

It should not be about how I stare backwards with wonder and horror forgetting so much laughter along the way.

It should not be about paranoia against a backdrop of savagery.

It should not be about benefit cuts and murder.

But rather the undefinable joy that costs nothing that can be found here.

The thrill of creating something so insignificant yet so real.

The extravagance of knowledge, of knowing, of seeking out. Then sleeping.

It should be about poets for hire throwing their words to the wind.

Hot salty chips covered in curry sauce.

The hovering silhouette of a kestrel.

A new pamphlet by our favourite Cambridge fellow.

 

It should not get smothered in sentimental attachment or mired in dystopian gloom.

 

But it does.