Berry Love:
Excuse me while I tend to my
All-but-broken heart,
Fruits of romance make nothing more,
Than a deadly bitter tart.
The fine colours of a courtship
Have all been peeled away,
To watch you enjoy the citrus juice,
Unaware of sweet decay.
You bit into the slices,
Like a king upon his throne,
Forgetting indulging many segments,
Reveals a rotten stone.
You’d dance with ripest ecstasy,
And lie upon the pool
Of sweetest wines and seeds that wrap
Webbed pith around the fool.
Naive to try and hold one fruit,
When the bowl is thrown above,
You may dive in to save your many treats,
And drown in Berry Love.
Fuck It: Part 2,
a.k.a. “Bitter lemons make a terrible refreshment, sir. Have the coke, instead.”
If I could write the perfect poem,
To perch inside a modern home,
I’d pen a piece to rival those
Who rule over the high-brow prose
That swamp the fields of today’s pages
That drown each verse of yester-sages.
I’d challenge the intellective-led,
Who’ve all but declared that Shakespeare’s dead;
Sent out of bounds, go rhythm and rhyme –
Our Lords care not for keeping time.
Romantics lie by the guillotine
For simply writing what they mean.
Heroic black and white must fade,
And wallow into an opaque, greyed
Page of nothing, that as of now,
Is hailed as Art’s last sacred cow.
I’d make it dull, I’d wash away
The shine from stars of yesterday.
The diamonds now are made of tin
To please our new King, Benjamin!
It’d bore the shit out of every kid,
Without a word of what Shelley did
Or the other heroes, we loved and knew
That once were many, now are few:
Vanquished in a pale of smoke,
Sponsored by Netflix and coke.
I’d ensure that joy and passion stay
Outside the door from where we play
A tune that no one hears or sings,
But it’s Carol’s, so it must mean EVERYTHING.
Such art I’d write, compose, create
Then watch it adorned, sat in the Tate
And just like Carol’s, all would sing
THIS PIECE MUST MEAN EVERYTHING.
I’d wait for press to ask of me
The piece that fills them all with glee.
What would I say, what could I do?
This piece I made here, just for you?
Perhaps they’d think I’m cavalier
As I make them wait and keep them here
But all would stop their puzzling,
When I told them it meant not a thing.
I wrote it because I wanted only
To stop feeling so very lonely
In a modern world, I do not fit.
That’s why – no, really, honest, that’s it!
If I could, I’d find within me
Something a little more contemporary
But I can’t.
So fuck it.
Fuck It: Part 3,
a.k.a. “I’d like a fruit salad. Only grapes. I’d like that fruit salad to ferment, and then placed in a green, 750ml bottle of glass.”
If I had any willpower
There’d be so many things I could do
I could lose weight
I could have the salad
I could climb a mountain
Or run a marathon.
I could be fit
I could get a first
I could get a better job
I could say no to the red velvet cake that is currently rearranging its own icing so it can glare at me in a Picasso-inspired arrangement knowing I’m going to end its life in 3 mouthfuls or less.
I could say no to lazy days under the covers with Ben&Jerry’s, or Haagen-Daas if I’m still bitter about Brexit.
I could say no to the wine.
But I can’t,
So fuck it.