Goodbye, few things

Top of the list is cupcakes. Does anyone
actually eat this sickly over-iced,
pseudo kitsch, toy food except perhaps
a few girly women who think having
a large shoe collection makes them maverick.

Big black pick up trucks as driven by men
whose default fabric is camouflage. These
swollen testosterone substitutes are
the automotive equivalent
of a liquorice flavoured ribbed condom.

PVC banners, those dingy oblongs
of bad computer graphics tied onto
every suburban pub, roundabout, school.
Usually advertising a singles nite
or fundraising fayre long since past, or worse
still, a carvery. Pop up anything.

The vaguely west coast stubbly check shirted
bloke who features in every phone, computer
and small car ad. You know the one
with scruffy hair and a retro t-shirt
probably designs apps that no one asked for
and fewer people need.

From The Pitiable Impossibility of Debt in the Mind of Someone Shopping.

Saying true things

I’m in love with you
and I’m not in the business
of denying myself
the simple pleasure of
saying
true
things
I’m in love with you
and I know that
love is just a shout
into the void
and that
oblivion is inevitable
and that
we’re all doomed
and that
there will come a day when
all our labor has been
returned
to
dust
and I know the sun
will swallow the only earth
we’ll ever have
and
I’m in love with you.

From The Fault in Our Stars. By Megan.

The moderate Finnish sauna

You should not slap
your neighbours without asking
their permission first.

The sauna is dear to me, almost sacred.
My father was born in one,
and his dying wish was to bathe
in a sauna one last time.

Summer is the best time to go.
Strike a match, hear
the crackling of dry birch wood
as it is engulfed by the greedy flames,
then sit down on the steps
to ponder the ways of the world
and wait for the sauna to warm up.

Your body sighs with relief when the first
ladleful of water hits the sizzling stove.
The experience is topped off with a dive
into a pure, clear lake.
What else does a human being need?

Both senryu and main poem are from a piece about saunas by Olli Rehn, European Commissioner in charge of the Eurozone crisis.

Simon and Ruth

At first, Ruth was a bit put off
by the fact that Simon turned up in a car
with every imaginable gadget:
I wasn’t used to flash cars, she says.

Then, on a day out to the beach,
Simon messed up Ruth’s kite.
He got all the lines tangled
so I didn’t use it again, says Ruth,

who had, however, noticed
that Simon was very polite.

From the Announcements, Marriages and Engagements section of The Times, 18 February 2012. By Thom.

I am not even faintly like a rose

I am not even faintly like a rose.
I wasn’t even vaguely engaged.
I have been drunk just twice in my life.
I was standing beside his bed.
I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level
of the Pennsylvania Station.
I had been actually invited.
Most of the time I worked.
I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes.
I wasn’t actually in love.
I felt a sort of tender curiosity.
I am one of the few honest people
that I have ever known.
I was more annoyed than interested.
I don’t believe they heard a sound.
I stayed late that night.
I was reminded of something.
I wanted to get up and slap him on the back.
I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth.
I just remembered that today’s my birthday.
I was feeling a little sick and
I wanted to be alone.
I walked away and left him standing there.
I couldn’t sleep all night.
I didn’t want to go to the city.
I thanked him for his hospitality.
I wanted to get somebody for him.
I’m five years too old to lie to myself
and call it honor.
I turned away.
I went over.
I erased it.
There was nothing I could say.
I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world.