Doubles

I miss you. I hark back to the friendship
we used to have, impromptu adventures,
knowing the everyday details of each
other’s lives, nights in watching trashy TV.

I’ve been there at 3am when you’ve clutched
my hand and explained he’s dependable
and he’ll make a great father. I want to
tell you that it’s the 21st century

but you don’t listen to me any more.
I am impeccably polite. I put on
a rictus grin when you spend an hour
discussing your wedding plans. I am

becoming a souvenir of your past life,
to be gradually discarded for
women you can play doubles tennis with.
I’m happy for you. But I wish you’d call.

From What I’m really thinking: the single friend.

I do like a pleasure every now and again

Sometimes I eat that ‘plastic’ ham or cheese singles.
I’ve also read some really (so-called) trashy books.
I have a fondness for Harry Styles and quite like Cheryl Cole.

I must be pretty thick and uneducated,
or so it would seem, despite the fact that
I often eat in ‘high-end’ restaurants,
read (so-called) literary fiction
and regularly go to the theatre.

I don’t want to read 50 Shades,
but don’t give a monkey’s poop who else reads it.
Read what you like I say, just accept that maybe
I don’t want to read it. I have no interest
in reading Austen, Trollope, Eliot or Dickens either –
so my disinterest crosses many boundaries!

As yet, I have not watched Gogglebox,
but I expect that if I do, I may be hooked.

My cranberry sauce usually comes from B&M.
I have cider in the salad drawer,
and I also like my red wine cold – yes, cold –
and usually the bottle has a screw top!

There are loads of books that I don’t want to read,
things that I don’t want to watch
and places that I don’t want to eat in.
However, lots of people do – and surely that’s fine?

I like my life, my food and my books to be diverse.

Text from a friend’s facebook status, and from her responses to other people’s comments on it. By Angi Holden.

Four Trees Quartet

Eastern Hemlock

The leaves fall upon drying.
A poor Christmas tree.
Poor quality of wood.

Stonelike hardness of the knots
will chip steel blades.
Lumber taken for pulp.

Useful for railroad ties.
Holds spikes exceptionally well.
Bark rich in tannin.

A tea was once made from leaves
and twigs by woodsmen and Indians.
As fuel, the wood throws sparks.


Japanese Honeysuckle

Fruits eaten
by birds and mammals

and the dense cover
is much used,

but generally speaking
it is a weed.


Smooth Blackhaw

Fruits eaten
by foxes,

bobwhites,
and several

songbirds.
Some people

also like them


Bullbrier Greenbrier

Some twigs
may be

without
prickles.

From George A. Petrides, A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs (1973). By J. R. Solonche.

The Bravest Man

Most of them were left just where they fell.
We came to the man with big mustache;
he lay down the hills towards the river.
The Indians did not take his buckskin shirt.
The Sioux said, ‘That is a big chief. That is Long Hair.’
I don’t know. I had never seen him. The man
on the white-faced horse was the bravest man.

Two Moon, a Cheyenne chief, recalling the Battle of Little Bighorn in an interview for McClure’s Magazine, September 1898.

What We Should Be Doing

We ought to be reading
poetry too
of course
and nonfiction

We should read
instruction manuals
legal documents
restaurant reviews and corporate newsletters

We should follow weird people
on Twitter
and go to lots of parties
and have lots of intense
and ridiculous
conversations with drunk people

We should go
home for the holidays
and argue with our families
and we ought to
listen
to lots of music
and we ought to watch
plenty of television

We should eavesdrop
and we should gossip

We should probably be in therapy

We should probably drink
more coffee.

From Most contemporary literary fiction is terrible. By Wesley Brown.

Across & Down

Police officer, at times,
bane of the farmer’s wife.
Safest option:
Shirley’s partner.

Outside
snatch Rosemary—
thine
from the Vienna Woods,
winning for the moment
expectant, perhaps
bound together—
perturbed
auriculate
bottomless.

Troublesome,
change the packaging.

Bridge support
where Tanumafili is king.
Type of master
problems for Job.
He didn’t finish his sentence:
the man of a thousand faces.

Utterly beat,
Cosmonaut Gagarin
comes ashore.
Three steps and a shuffle.

Clues from the New York Times crossword, 18 July 1993. By Joan Siegel.

The broken down train

The broken down train has started moving.
We will be able to get all the trains moving soon.

The train has just started moving.
We will be able to get everything running soon.

The train has moved,
we will be able to move all trains now.
Some residual delay will occur.

The broken train has moved,
trains will be able to run again.
Sorry for the delay.

The train has just started moving,
trains are able to run again.
Some residual delay will occur.

The broken down train is now on the move.
Residual delay is expected until 19:15

Ha, Make sure you tweet again next time.

You’re welcome, sorry for the delay.
Sorry for the delay today.

Consecutive South West Trains tweets, 16 March 2013. By MsJinnifer.

Prescription for a creative burst

I want to sit out in privety
with my dressing-gown on
and nobody to see
but it must have a balcony.

Then I can finish my writing.
It’s a hundred-and-forty a night, with a hot tub.
That’s no good. I can’t write
with a fountainpen in a hot tub.

I wonder if there’s background music.
I can’t have the sort of music
that keeps you jumpin’ all the while.
There needs to be quiet.

The windows have got to open.
I must hear water all the time.
If I get a room that’s luxurious
I’ll get writing in half the time.

I want to see Rooms One and Eight.
I want to see if they’ll do.
I don’t need you to come with me,
but I’ll need you to move in with me.

It’s all sketched out already,
just waiting to be filled in.
I’m tense till I get this settled.
Can’t get my head round it till then.

Overheard in a hotel bar in Ludlow, Shropshire, 10 March 2013. By John Killic.

Deserters

We were getting new recruits
sixteen and seventeen years of age
when we had to do this attack

The two youngsters were crying
It was such a shock
We moved up to the attack
They had cleared off
three or four miles from the action

They were brought back and charged
The verdict of the court was read out
The two young men had deserted
They were going to be shot at dawn

The two young men
were brought out
to a yard
blindfolded

Fire at the head
At the heart

The chances were
they would be killed instantly
As of course they were

The four men who had to shoot them
were sick with it all
There was sympathy for the boys
but more for their parents

We lived with it all
for days
weeks

I can see it all now

Private William Holmes in Forgotten Voices of the Great War. By Lisa Oliver.