So it turns out I’m from Generation X, but I didn’t quite make it
to Xennials, which, in the eyes of iGens, let alone unfledged Alphas,
would probably put me somewhere in the stratum of social fossils.
And I’m fine with it because all this bizarre palaeontology catches
no more than a cobweb weaved between the edges of the volumes
of Encyclopædia Britannica resting on my shelves.
For R. Mutt
This is a poem,
if I so decide. I have the power to do this.
After all, I am a poet and a seasoned connoisseur
of porcelain fixtures.
I can’t recall the last time I needed a nap after dinner.
It must have been when I was a kid in the nursery.
I remember teachers herding our skittish bunch onto mattresses
on the floor of the playroom for that very purpose.
Those who didn’t want to sleep had their faces pretend to be brushed
with a janitor’s broom, which was always greeted with squeals and laughter.
But eventually each of us would fall asleep, as I had just done.
Life truly does come full circle.
Writing poetry has always been a peculiar occupation,
even more so now, in the Age of Imagination,
when it has turned from the spiritual torment of a few under patrician patronage
to a thankless endeavour pursued by the faceless myriad, hardly ever paid for,
even in that cheap currency called likes, driven by some obscure algorithm
that decides whether and to whom to show your stanzas.
What I’m actually trying to say is that I’m a pathetic third-rater,
feeling sorry for myself because no one reads me
—except you, of course.
I left my country to spare my kids the national hysteria of the Messiah of Nations,
but in the end, they are even more confused than if they were raised there.
Perhaps that’s exactly what was to be expected. After all, even I’m no longer sure
who I am since two decades have severed all ties except one: my passport.
However, my new home doesn’t exactly make it easy to find a new identity.
If anything, I would call myself a Scot rather than a Brit, but that hardly matters,
given that I refuse to swear an oath to the king. So, I settled for an emigrant,
with all the obligations but without the most fundamental right—the right to vote.
This is the price I pay for staying true to my principles, although some might say
I’m just a stubborn fool.
If I were to punch anyone in the face,
it would be the one who said I should live my life
without regrets. What kind of advice is that?
The only way to follow it is to never be born;
otherwise, you will always regret something,
even if it’s the life you haven’t lived.
So many have said so much so far that, in all likelihood, I can only add a thing
or two at most to the canon—though this bromide is unlikely to cut it—yet I still
meticulously compose a stanza every day, as if it were supposed to fix something.
Who knows, maybe I should try my hand at songwriting, or perhaps epitaphs
could become my thing. After all, most of us are more likely to listen to the radio
or visit loved ones at a graveyard than, even in that magical moment just before bed,
reach for a book of poetry.
In the scorch of August, sitting naked in a garden chair
dragged into my airy living room, I read Carlyle’s notes
on the froth-eddies and sand-banks of the Mechanical Age
he was born into and wonder whether a simple urban hermit
from the Age of Imagination like myself should still repeat
after him that our spiritual maladies are but of Opinion.
Although we may be fettered by chains of our own forging,
which we ourselves could also rend asunder, the sheer number
of those who have fallen victim to their corrupting weight
hardly makes the latter plausible. But what would I know
beyond my sweaty, naked body?
It starts with skipping the shower on the odd occasion.
After a while, showering every other day becomes a habit.
Then you realise that washing the whole body once a week
was actually good enough for your forefathers, but since you
are not religious, you end up settling for doing it fortnightly.
You even come up with quite an elaborate explanation
—something about environmental awareness and the like.
But, I guess, personal hygiene is not the worst casualty
of the lockdown-induced remote work, online shopping,
and heartbreak.
hidden pilcrow 