083. ...reassemble it and call it a poem.

(poem)

Photo by Lambie.

About thirty people, I reckon, squeezed into the Sketchy Beats’ arts cafe, a living room sized space at the end of Great Junction Street, for The Sad Song Club’s fortnightly open mic.

The night is a “celebration of sad songs, music and poetry” and I wasn’t sure my poems would be the right kind of sad. They’re not broken hearted love lost or unrequited sad.

They are, almost always, autobiographical and all my heartache and lost love has been processed. I tend to be asking myself questions and trying to understand why I think and act the way I do. Where I fit. Or why other people? That's not a grammatical or syntax error. My poems are, most often, just jumbled elements of my inner monologue that have spun around in my head long enough, or hard enough, to achieve escape velocity. I emit them like an owl emitting pellets. Or maybe not as graceful as that. I’ve never seen an owl emit a pellet. Hold on while I check youtube.

Did you look? Yeah it’s not as smooth as that.

More like a cat yakking out a hairball. Or! The chest burster scene from Alien. Actually somewhere in the thematic connective ether between those two is a perfect visual metaphor for my writing practice.

Once the words have been spewed out onto the fence post/kitchen floor/mess room table/computer screen I can poke into them like an ornithologist or an aspiring exobiologist or, as it turns out, a poet. I’ve left cat owners out of this extended and knotty mixed metaphor/cultural reference because if there are cat owners who poke into and sift about through their pet’s mucous drenched hairy mouth leavings, I don’t want to give that any further thought. I hope you’re not eating. I’ll put a warning at the top.

SO yeah, I think I eject what’s in my head and then take that apart, reassemble it and call it a poem. And the poems I wrote most recently came from inside a sad head. I was feeling lonely and disconnected.

They're deeply personal. The idea of taking two extremely personal poems about failing to connect and social awkwardness to a brand new social situation where I’d attempt to connect with a bunch of people I don’t know yet had me on the wobbly outer edges of nervous.

I find it difficult to engage with people the way I’d like to. I get anxious. I quite often say the wrong thing or present myself awkwardly.

I stood up at the mic and fumbled my own introduction so badly that I basically said I was about to expose myself to the audience. I paused to regroup then read two new poems about times recently when I’ve felt poorly connected.

This is one of them.

Leisure Centre Suggestion Box Entry #16.

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I’m not sure how well spoken word poetry works on the page but if you're happier scrolling past the spoken bit and skipping down to the word words you need scroll no further…

Leisure Centre Suggestion Box Entry #16.

Is anyone collecting and processing 
the data on poolside slip and fall? 
A life guard maybe? 
Someone from reception? 
Anyone at all?

If not could I get a look at your accident book?

My hypothesis is this -  
SLIDES and slips, 
out of control forward travel, and 
crashing impact with the tiles or water 
is limited, in the main, to corners.  

I think the swimmer throughput could be speedier. 
More expedient. I think we could get them in, 
undressed, dressed for a swim, doing lengths 
and back out again 
a little quicker 
if we opened up some -  

DO run areas.

If people were able to amble up 
to a light canter along pool flanks 
we'd get them in and out of the tank 
with greater efficiency. 

We might lose one or two 
but I suspect the trend toward wild swimming 
means the leisure centre is already losing custom 
to the North Sea.

I've made up, printed and popped in the box 
(as you'll see) 
prototype posters sized to both A4 and A3.
I have included an option where I use the tagline 
“You do run run run you do run run”
My intuition tells me this might get us into a bit of copyright bother. 
Best you, run that one past legal. 

Transition won't be without hitches. 
There’s obviously a DON'T run mentality which is 
deeply ingrained in the pool going set 
I expect it might be necessary 
to chivvy slow pokes along with a sharp whistle. 
Shouldn't be hard for the lifeguards. 😉
I hope that doesn’t comes across in a critical way…
hence the emoji
 
Maybe some stuff is better said face to face. 
But anyway, I take your point from yesterday, 
the suggestion box is certainly 
a more appropriate place 
for the submission of 
improvement propositions. 
A more formalised method of communication, as you say, than our chats at reception…

Do you suppose you’ll miss our chats though?

I know I will.

Sincerely of course, again

Paul. 

Thanks for reading and double thanks if you also listened. The other poem I read evolved from the Feel Better Soon post I put on here a little while ago. So you can get a fuller feeling for the evening if you check that one out too. It doesn’t have any audio though.

I’m going to go back to Sad Song Club and read some more poems another time. If you’d like to come with me gimme a shout.

If you know anyone who struggles to know when they should stop talking maybe you could pass this post onto them. Maybe they’d get in touch with me and say “I do this too!” and maybe we’ll become friends.

Shares, Subscribes and likes make me feel warm and loved. That’s all any of us really want isn’t it?

Thanks for reading. I love that you do.

Lambie.