Month: July 2017

#PoeticAnswers 35 – Are Vampires Halal?

I understand your thought process
Due to the blood-letting
But due to religious tones, I confess
The subject matter could be upsetting

Traditional vampires bite straight in the throat.
Modern vampires are somewhat irregular;
Going to blood banks, tampons or even goats
As opposed to going straight for the jugular

The religious process of prayer,
And the method of draining the blood,
Does not truly follow the requisites of a vampire.
Due to similarities of Islamic and Christian faith, I doubt they would try, even if they could.

Vampirism is not halal but if this is not satisfactory,
There is but one near exception, her name is Erzsébet Báthory.

Question from my good friend, Isla M. 

#PoeticAnswers 34 – What Do We Have To Eat?

Spaghetti Bolognese: 

A Poetic Recipe for Disaster

You will need:
Positive thoughts,
To be yourself
And denial to garnish.

You will also need:
A tin of chopped tomatoes
Passata,
A red onion,
A red pepper,
Mushrooms,
(If you can get a red mushroom
You can keep the theme going,)
Vegetarian mince (Almost definitely Quorn)
A beef Oxo cube
Black pepper, basil, oregano
And red wine.
Because it’s good for the soul.

Step One:
Have a glass of wine.

Step Two:
Have another glass of wine.

Step Three:
Begin by sautéing your
Onion, pepper and mushrooms.
Realise you have not cut your
Onion, pepper and mushrooms.
Realise you don’t know what
Sauté actually means,
Cut your fingers several times as you
Hastily attempt to cut the
Onion, pepper and mushrooms
Then throw the bloody mess
Into a pot with some red wine.

Step Four:
In a different pot,
Take your Quorn mince,
That beef Oxo cube,
And that pinch of denial
And throw them all together.

Step Five
Hate yourself.
Almost as much as you hate your girlfriend
For making you cut meat out of your diet,
But mostly hate yourself for trying to make it taste the same.
Tell yourself it tastes the same if you close your eyes.
Cry into the pot to give your dry ingredients something to stop them burning
And to add some salt to season.

Step Six:
You haven’t had a glass of wine in a while
Have a glass of wine.

Step Seven:
Halfway through cooking
And thinking everything is okay
And thinking you’re a competent human,
Realise you did not put spaghetti in the ingredients list,
And descend into a perturbing, pasta induced panic.
Take the cold still waters of you soul,
Place on your head and let your rage boil.
Accept this is futile,
Boil a kettle,
Take the kettle out of the pan
Hit yourself with the pan,
Fill the pan with water and place over heat
And question your education and life choices
That have led to this moment.

Step Eight:
Take your slightly alcoholic
And now mostly burnt vegetables
And throw in the passata and tinned tomatoes.
Season to taste.
Discover it tastes awful.
Add more wine.
Attempt to season further,
Throw literally everything in your herb collection
Into this raging ragu
Cry so much that it literally only tastes of
Your salty tears and wine.

Step Nine:
Add the pot of
Meat substitute and denial into the mix.

Step Ten
Empathise with your pasta,
You are currently as drained as your pasta
Both physically and emotionally.
Watch the water drain away
Into the dark void.
Wonder to yourself:
“How did it come to this?”

Step Eleven:
Be disgusted.
With everything.
Observe the mess that you’ve made,
Realise this is a perfect metaphor for your life.

Finally:
Give up,
Order Domino’s
Have another glass of wine.

Question from Justine F. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 33 – Who Do You Tell When You Eat A Banana?

I don’t tell a soul.
I just breathe a sigh as I
Look into their eyes

A private moment,
Awkward, erotic, secret.
This is ours to keep.

As the moment ends,
They leave, confused and hungry.
They don’t tell a soul

Question from Michael Clark from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 31 – When Did You First Realise Your Parents Don’t Know Everything and Can’t Fix Everything?

I remember being small,
Not emotionally or mentally,
Just in terms of being a child.

When I was sick, my dad
Would make his signature soup.
It was nothing overly special,
Chicken, rice and vegetables,
But it tasted like being better.

When I hurt myself, my mum
Would pick me up and clean my cuts
With the weird white cream
in the non-descript bottle,
Kiss it better and send me on my way.

It was just moisturiser,
And maybe it’s that over exposure
That’s made who I am today,
Soft and gentle,
Not much of a fighter.

But my dad didn’t like that,
I didn’t overly like that
Because boys were tough,
Rough and tumble, branch and bramble,
Carefree cuts and badge shaped bruises.

From boy scouts to black belts,
I tried to earn whatever rank it would take
To feel like I was on my way to
Being the best I can be.
But I wasn’t doing it for me.

Because I still remember
When I was six years old
My dad was rushed into hospital.

A work accident,
He went from tree surgeon
To needing a surgeon
And I was too young to understand
What hemiplegia meant.

Mum’s magic cream cculdn’t make
The pain go away
And he couldn’t get the special soup
Because he couldn’t get to the kitchen
Because the doctor wouldn’t let him.

Seeing this man who’d been
My idol and rock
Suddenly become bandaged rubble,
Putting on a brave face for me
When he knew he might never walk again.

So he would just lie there,
Being strong for all of us.
Like the rock in the river
Just before the waterfall.
Something to cling and climb onto.

Never showing signs of erosion,
Never crumbling to sand to become part of the riverbed.
Fighting time and tide to finally
Find his feet and run and jump the best he can
Because he was the rock on which he built his family.

I never really wanted to fight,
And this pansy-poetical, theatrical life
Wasn’t really what he had in mind.

He might not understand what it is I do,
He might not understand how he’s shaped me,
I’ve got blackbelts and trophies for taekwondo
But he was the one who tought me
What it really means to fight.

We grew up and grew apart,
I learned I am not the people my parents are,
And I might never be what they expected
Because I’m a lot of dirty words to them
But I’m okay with that.

There’s a lot of me that
They might not agree on because
They’re rocks, strong and sturdy,
But they don’t move,
They don’t change.

But to go through that,
They might not like theatre
But it was a performance I’ll never forget.

They’re still the strongest people I know.

Question from Jasmyne M. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 30 – If You Could Invent A New Colour, What Would It Look Like?

A colour that looks like the smell of coffee,
Moving from dull to bright with increased exposure,
Still but swirling, dark but milky,
A bittersweet shade for the morning.

A colour that looks like the taste of water,
Clear and unimposing, clean and dull,
Something cold but refreshing,
Nothing with a hint of something.

A colour that looks like the sound of night,
Brooding stillness and streetlight buzz,
Faintly hinting of distant brightness,
Indistinct and iridescent as your eylids close.

A colour that looks like the touch of a lover,
Sometimes warm, sometimes cold,
Violent and vibrant, or sometimes mellow,
Inconsistent, like a rainbow of skin.

Question from Michael Clark from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 29 – Where Do Butterflies Sleep?

He woke in the spring.
He did not feel beautiful.
He cried and took wing.

His chrysalis gone,
Warm summer grass became bed,
Clinging on, he slept.

Leaves fell with autumn,
The grass wilted and skies greyed,
He was left homeless.

Tired, he sought refuge.
A crevice, a bed of stone.
Then the winter came.

Question from Lucero I. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 28 – So, What Do You Do?

#PoeticAnswers 28 – So, What Do You Do?

I work for the Government.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
I work in Government finance and
Administrate Government grants
To help local councils develop their
Green and low-carbon infrastructure
To help promote the uptake of
Active travel and electric vehicles.

I play video games.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
Essentially, I just sit around
On my arse all day,
Pushing buttons and fiddling with joysticks,
Reminding myself of my previous,
And slightly more devious,
Sex life.

I play musical instruments.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
Piano, accordion, ukulele and banjo
Amongst a few others which,
In conjunction with my vape and my
What can only be described as “questionable” facial hair,
And the wafro which encompasses and cushions my skull,
Effectively makes me the world’s ultimate hipster.

I write poetry.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
It does nothing for the hipster stereotype
That I established in the previous stanza,
Nor does it make me sound like any less
Of an absolute wanker,
The only way I could possibly be worse
Is if I could actually afford a Macbook.

I see a therapist.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
It’s mostly just talking about
What I’ve been doing and
Why I’ve not been to see them in two months,
Which leads to further conversations about
My relationships, or apparent lack of them,
Resulting in deep-sea dives into my personality.

I suffer from bipolar disorder.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
It’s like a low-budget rollercoaster,
Only ever hitting highs and lows
Or somewhere in between,
Making me see things that can’t actually be seen.
Making unscheduled stops in places I don’t know,
Driving me off the rails like a runaway train.

I self-harm.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
I lock myself away emotionally and physically,
Hiding inside the shattered remains of my
Already fractured mind.
Smoking, bruising, purging, cutting,
Using my body as a punching bag
To knock some sense into myself.

I spend a lot of time thinking about suicide.
It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
Wondering why it would be better
To let my helter-skelter life
Plummet off the edge of the waterfall
At the end of my shallow-water life.
It’s the result of nihilism instilled by
Self-doubt, mental health, and life choices.

And having to work for the Government.

Question from Lisa T. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 27 – How Many Ways Can You Think of to Time Travel?

Be taken back by a teacher,
An adept modern-day magician,
Performing and informing of
The importances of yesteryear.

Immerse yourself in the books of yesterday,
Let each word carefully stack and build,
Let your imagination craft and succumb
To this portal to the old world.

Take the time to listen,
Let the old rhythm take control
Dance to the sway of Sinatra or Holliday
Appreciate the class and the moment.

Start up the engine
Of an eighties icon.
Drive back to the future
With an old man complaining about your children.

You could sacrifice your life for companionship,
Journey with a stranger
And learn the insanity of the truth
While doctoring the timestream.

Think harder than you’ve ever thunk before,
Take the time to remember your life.
Enjoy the comedy, learn from the misery,
But do not let yourself get trapped in the past.

Or give in to inevitability.
You can choose to run forward to the future
Or just choose to stand still,
And let time slowly pass you by.

Question from Michael C. from Facebook.

#PoeticAnswers 26 – How Much Do You Love Me?

I love you a number that’s incalculable.
It may sound unfathomable,
Bordering on inconceivable,
But a number is not believable.

Because love is immeasurable,
But if this answer isn’t pleasurable,
Placing a value is not applicable
Trying would only be despicable.

Sweetie, you are adorable
Even when you’re inconsolable
But I can’t say something numerical
Because that would be heretical.

Darling, please be flexible.
It really isn’t personal.
Please don’t hold me responsible
For this answer diabolical.

I’m sorry it isn’t palatable,
This doesn’t make us incompatible.
But I don’t have an example
Of a value that is ample.

I’m not acting feeble,
You’re being unbelievable,
This situation’s laughable,
Here’s an answer that is passable:

I love you a number that’s incalculable
It may sound unfathomable,
Bordering on inconceivable,
But one hundred sounds believable.

Question from Kirsty E. from Facebook.

#PoeticAnswers 25 – What Is That Blue Thing Doing There?

I understand it’s confusing,
But due to recent changes
To their life and lifestyle
The Doctor will now be using
This bathroom instead of that one.

Oh my God, Dave, that’s so racist.
You can’t say that anymore.
Smurfs are people and hey can be here,
There’s no place for this level of xenophobia.
It’s the twenty-first century now.

He has tried his damn best,
He has been sticking to a strict regime
Of diet and exercise.
Addiction is a serious issue,
Cookie, you are not a monster

Stop judging people by the colour
Of their skin, fur, or exoskeleton.
Stop judging people by their
Problems, gender, or species.
Blue people are people too.

Question from Kate K.