You sick weirdo!

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

As a child I sometimes had
What I would call
"Fits of unreality"

I would be in the school playground
Playing football
Always a few yards in front of the goal
Always playing defense
And I was very good at that

Or it would be Wednesday noon
I'd be having lunch
With my grandma
And she'd be cooking veal
With these small noodles I loved
That looked like tori cut in halves
Of course I didn't know that word
Then
They looked like
Small empty shells
And my grandma always cooked them twice
Until they got really crunchy
Because I liked them
Crunchy

Or I'd be at home
Sitting at the kitchen table
Listening to my parents talk
About people who buy expensive things with money they don't have
About the best brand of mattress for patients with bedsores
Or I'd be in the garden
Watching the dogs play
Or I'd be looking at myself
In the bathroom mirror

And suddenly
For a few seconds
The world would become meaningless
The playground and the ball
Would seem like a joke
My grandma at her cooker
And her crunchy noodles
A trick of the mind
My mother and father and pets
Complete strangers
My face in the bathroom mirror
The greatest of unlikelihoods

Yes
For a moment
I could not believe
In myself
And even less in the world
Around me
And it would have been nice then
To be allowed
To put little labels
On things
Labels that would read
"Ball"
"Noodle"
"Father"
"Mirror"

One day my mother noticed
Because
For ten seconds
I had been looking at her
As if I was seeing her face
For the first time
I was terrified
But she was cool
And we decided to call these fits
Something innocuous
For us
"Vertigoes"

The doctor had nothing to say
I felt like an alien
In my own home
I could not believe I was someone
In some town
In western Europe
But still it had to be
OK

A few years later
I started reading all I could about
Buddha
And his life
And his beliefs
And I started thinking that maybe
At the start of a new life
It was not unusual
To feel a little unreal
After all
We all need a little time
To get used to this world again
Don't we?

But a few years after that
I started believing in the power of Cautious Reasoning
And Knowledge
And I decided that my vertigoes
Must have been the effects
Of some malfunctioning synapses
Somewhere deep in these three pounds
Of white throbbing stuff

However
Today
When I look in the bathroom mirror
I still can't believe in myself
I still can't believe that two people
In western Europe in 1976
Wanted this
Me
Their little boy
Now thirty years old
Bent mute all day long
In man-machine symbiosis
Working hard on stuff
People will need
In tomorrow's world
Maybe

And I can't believe
That this may last
For another fifty years
Not that I'm unhappy
Or even happy
I just wonder
I can't see a scheme
Or a purpose
In their world

And on a day like today
When death has seemed so sweet
All day
I just can't believe
That I'm still here
To not believe

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

I like this poem a great deal. Your other stuff is more universal, but, I can somehow relate more to this poem than anything else you've posted so far, even though I can't say for sure that I've ever experienced the exact thing you are describing, (and describing quite well, I may add.)

I'm digging the creepier stuff... Here's something fairly new. I'm not even gonna try to deny it... I was inspired by Beetlejuice on this one, and briefly by John Wayne Gacy.



For the warmth that I strive to contain in you;

For the mortar I lay in your cracks;

You give me the gift of a skeleton key,

That's been lathered with smudged fingerprints

You say it's authentic

I wouldn't be sure


It opens all things, save for one stubborn door...


The attic

Refuses to budge;

Hulking portal,

In heavy lit frame

A towering, nightly, archway of defeat

I keep circling through over again

Like a bird fastened tight to the rails

Skating round all the cogs and the wheels

In the tattooing heart of your careful invention

That screeches and stops in another dimension


I swear there's a wild thing, nightly, you welt

It's wasting and writhing, there; pinned to a belt,

Or tucked in the floorboards, like some twisted fag

Of old letters - all dried out and drained of their sap

So dry, now, infact,

That I'm sure they'd combust

If I mentioned I'd stumbled across them, in passing

Rummaging, desperate, like I was just guessing;


Looking to silence the scratch in the walls


I think the influence of TW is alienating me from general society. - to_dizzy

Thanks.

In reply to:

---

like some twisted fag

---

It's too bad Monkeyboy never checks this thread, he'd be glad you mentioned him in one of your poems.


"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

At least now we'll get to see whether he does searches for his name.

Whether in success or failure, sooner or later time must lead to disillusionment...

It will be a good test indeed.

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

Planet Earth is getting warmer
He said
I said
I guess so
So he asked
What are you doing about it?
And I replied
Well, it's been freezing all week,
So I guess I could take
A degree or six

Then he said
Don't be cynical
What world do you want for your kids?
And I said
What kids would want our world
Anyway?
I didn't want it
My father didn't want it
And my father's father before him
No one ever wanted it
It runs in the family

So he said
Don't be selfish
I'm sure your kids want to be born
And I said
As much as I'd like to outnumber
The religious nuts
The woman haters
The football fans
And most of all
The polar bears
There's no way I can be a father

So he said
If everyone was like you
It would be the end of mankind!
And I said
Cry me a river

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

The idea
Is to take every single shitty idea
And to turn it
Into

Art


You're in bed
Reading some disturbing poem
By some girl who took her own life
And you think about putting a bullet in your brain

Then it becomes
Art


Or you're at home
Sitting on the throne
And you feel like crying
And moving to a sunny island somewhere

Then it becomes
Art


Or you're bored at work
Thinking about the next time you'll get drunk
And you have a childhood reminiscence
About some mental dysfunction you had

Then it becomes
Art


Or you're taking a shower
Whistling "Well, you needn't" by
Thelonious Monk
And you realise how easy it is
To write about just anything

Then it becomes
Art


Doesn't it?

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

At first I wanted to respect you
I assumed the best
Like some naive child

But then you blew it all
With a dry reply
And a scornful look

I said nothing then
But you have no idea
How much I wanted to plant my nails in your shoulder
Until you bled
Until the pain made you cry
Until you realised who it is who pays your wages
And what a despicable piece of shit you are

Yes, I've been too kind again
That's my biggest flaw
I try but I can't
Be haughty
Be nasty
And I can't speak loud

But rest assured
You despicable piece of shit
That next time we meet
I will plant my nails in your shoulder
Until you bleed
Until the pain makes you cry
And I'll break your teeth
With the nearest bongo drum
And I'll crush your balls
With the shiniest saxophone
And I'll bang your head
With the newest Epiphone

Until you show me respect
Or die trying

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe

You're fourteen years old
Wearing your purple sweatsuit
Looking at postcards in a shop
In your home town

You look around and notice
A guy
Unkempt hair
Bearded
Thirtyish
Standing close
And he gives you a weird smile
You smile back
But you're not used
To people
Smiling
For nothing
Like that

Then you look for your mother
But she went out
So you go out too
But you can't find her
So you do what's best
Go back to the car and wait

But she's not there either
So you look around
And there in the next car
Is a man
Sat at the wheel
White greasy hair
Golden rings
Sixtyish
And he gives you a wide smile
And he's friendly and talkative
And he asks where your mother is

Well here she comes
You reply
And suddenly his smile is gone
And he's all shy and quiet
As you get in your mother's car

You have school tomorrow
And there life will go on
As usual
You'll keep acting rude to
The one you love (she doesn't know)
And some gorgeous girl you'd never noticed
Will ask you out
And you'll say no
Because
Honestly
You can't see the point in twisting your tongue
Around hers
And you're not even sure what "going out with" means

Then you'll go back home
And gaze at the fashion pages in Cosmopolitan
For a long long time
Until the tension
At last
Is released
And then you'll fall asleep
Thinking that you and your mother's magazines
Have the healthiest of relationships

"This is very good, but please don't do it again." - Grandma on my roasted camembert recipe