"SNARKY"

(NEW, NOTHINGY LITTLE POEM)

the review said. inaccurately. o, god. to be misunderstood.

stale wafers of waffle, poetry. a humble smudge on the left extremity ever so. do slogans, m said, do poignant slog, the profiteering stalemate of working class poetics. jesus wept. and virtue’s whirlbones grind. i never wanted this. i wanted – exit. through the loophole of hyperbole. from all my aimless rage. someone has been wiki-ing. i never wanted this. exposed. raw. like lobscouse potato. not peeled, but scraped. yes, i too say stew when i mean soup. and vice versa. what u gonna do? on my way into work. there are typos, typos, iteration and swathe. emails. institutional demands. i have been ignoring: deadlines, compliments, admin. sorry. they pile up together. pale shavings, stones and spales. colleague, her irrigated laughter. boss. rolling out their pennants of improvement, soon to fly. the tongue. i’m not okay. poem: nothing so fickle as lyric under regime. on my way home from work. the improvised slow-time of flagrant delay. i am alone. at least i am alone. what is any of it for? the problem of symbolic form. dazed curse i fling back at the world. discourse, grimy canards, canned learning. no, it is my life. the disorganised rant disgorged, descant. n’est pas? so much and so many. elegy, decorative melodies. the subject, centred and slaked. slackly entered. occupied and emptied. again. and again. i want: the mulch and clutch of earth. my brother. murky pathos. dogs. stood here, in the motley of my doggerel, stupefied by sadness. the ear is for corruption. the eye is for eclipse. too much to ask to live in the world. we go about, desperate and blasé. the poem and i. neither is much comfort to the other.