poems
ten easy steps to a new year’s you
- Drink more water. Water’s cool. Water fills your energy pool. Just think drink – and that drink is water. You’re obviously not drinking as much as you oughta. The human body needs 60 percent. Technically a fire hydrant. If you wanna be fit and animated, strap on a tank and stay hydrated.
- Think positive. Negativity’s provocative. Learn to see the best in people (unless they’re absolutely unspeakable – in which case positively avoid ‘em, while you figure out simple ways to destroy them).
- Dance with abandon a minute a day. Don’t let shopping trolleys get in your way. Dance with bananas, dance with sprouts. Dance as security escorts you out.
- Keep a journal of your thoughts. Use a pseudonym to avoid the courts.
- You do you. Everyone else is taken – true? I know you’ve been getting a little bit stressed – but catfishing’s technically identity theft.
- Walk for half an hour a day. By the end of the week you’ll be miles away.
- Detox relationships, spruce up your spouse. Take a steam cleaner to your friends and your house. Strip things back to the bare essentials. Find a tin for your pens and pencils. Take out the trash with gloves and tongs. Maybe you’ll see where your life went wrong.
- Smile at strangers. Wink and nod. Not your problem if they think you’re odd. Shoulders back, eyes on the level. Whistle like you’re something special. Because feelings follow where actions lead. Success is practically guaranteed. In no time at all you’ll be cock-a-hoop (but no-one’ll sit next to you on the tube).
- Identify goals for the end of each month. Write an action plan over lunch. Take the plan, mail it to yourself. Then stack it with the others on the very top shelf.
- Enrol on a course. Learn to cook. Read a self-improvement book. Take a blood test. Take a break. Get a grip fer chrissakes.
unforeseen consequences
I built a sweet robot
that looked like me
he went off to work
uncomplainingly
he shopped and he cooked
he kept the place clean
he saw friends and family
for propylene
worked out at weekends
was cheerful in queues
kept up to date
with the daily news
tended the garden
was social or private
sometimes quarrelsome
sometimes quiet
one day he stopped me
and said with a cough
it seems you’re redundant
and switched me off
an old rebellion folk song
sing a-hey ho the wind and the rain
the tories are history and spring comes again
we’ll win back our freedom, we’ll take back control
just call the election, let’s go to the polls
the country was ruined, the country was wracked
our rivers polluted, our railways off track
our schools and our hospitals riven with strife
britannia sold cheaply and put to the knife
your monument in granite
was profits not planet
the narrowest of self-serving worlds you inhabit
where there was discord
you brought alarm
the knacker’s van parked up on ol’ maggie’s farm
the daily mail bleating
the telegraph tweeting
the backroom oligarchs meeting n’greeting
but despite all the slogans
the deals and the bungs
you still couldn’t stop the change that would come
sing a-hey ho the wind and the rain
the tories are history and spring comes again
we’ll win back our freedom, we’ll take back control
just call the election, let’s go to the polls …
(exit, jangling bells, clacking staves, spinning round in circles &c…)
bless the bed
suddenly – a violent storm
lightning, squally rain
here I am, snug and warm
up late with a book again
propped up on pillows
buried in a duvet
lost in the temples
of Göbekli Tepe
foxes, snakes, vultures, wolves
on jointed megaliths
patiently carved with primitive tools
for ritual emphasis
here I lie, the light still on
the new year just ahead
worried about what’s yet to come
while ancient beasts play round my bed
Happy New Year!
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!
Thanks so much for all the likes, comments and support through 2023.
Here’s to 2024! Hope it’s a good one for you.
Lots of love
Jim
fifty years ago this breakfast
the most expensive present
I ever got as a kid
was a bike
I know – right?
I had no idea that night
what was waiting for me
when I woke up super early
tore through my presents
with a growing sense
something was missing
I mean the stuff
my brothers and sisters gave me
was okay
in a pocket money, birthday-right-after-Christmas, this’ll-have-to-do kinda way
but how many times can you say
wow … thanks… GREAT!
till the fake excitement starts to grate
I felt pretty bad
I couldn’t find a present from mum & dad
down at breakfast
mum was straight faced
said it’s time you fed the neighbour’s cat
and though honestly I was getting round to that
I thought it was a LITTLE bit tough
what with it being MY BIRTHDAY AND STUFF
but I said okay yep sure
snatched the key from its hook on the board
threw on a jacket, scarf and hat
trudged next door to feed the damned cat
and – yikes!
there in the kitchen was a brand new bike!
a label
on the handle
saying Happy Birthday Jim!
(the cat going mad so of course I fed him)
now – here’s the thing
my first response was screaming delight
I mean – c’mon, people – a bike!
but at the risk of sounding a bit obnoxious
I suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious
it was the set up
the way they dreamt up
the whole plan
mum? dad?
neither had
ever gone in for playful devices
the emotional messiness a surprise comprises
which is why this
knocked me sideways
these were untried ways
we were a big family raised
like a sensible flock
whose common stock
was cool detachment
orbiting each other like particle fragments
following the coded family ways
appropriate actions, the right things to say
and THAT’S why I suddenly felt self-conscious
and THAT’S why going home made me anxious
but of course I had to!
I couldn’t just step out on my birthday to feed the neighbour’s cat
and the next thing they’re telling detectives the colour of my hat
so eventually I walked back over to the house
made my entrance with embarrassing shouts
You rotten lot! but it sounded fake
my smile the smile a clown would make
gurning, pratfalling in for the sake
of a quietly breakfasting family circus
awkward as a bike on a kitchen surface
anyway – the whole damned enterprise was totally doomed, toast
two weeks later I rode straight into a lamppost
FC makes the drops
I hear fadda christmas
is gettin’ down to business
with some fancy leg work
and a distribution network
the family can only dream of
leaning on the cream of
elf productivity
and the magical ability
to be nowhere and everywhere all at once
multiple drops on multiple fronts
and even though he’s far from skinny
reliably making it down the chimney
so anyways – santa, my friend – here’s to ya
and if you make it back alive – happy noo ya
jim clayton 