insufferable people
it’s city life
like the train bum
We see him way too much
once a week anyway - he's notorious.
you can’t just loom over someone
stand too close
I can smell him, gross
get out of my space
get out of my face
stay an arm’s length away
He makes me miss covid isolation
There’s vulnerability in human interaction
Charles asks me with his eyes
I look away - which says ‘no,’
but I’ll let you know.
As we slide into the station
I step back
and Charles steps between us
my exit, now behind Charles, is blocked from view
and Charles pivots to subtly block his exit
until the doors close and Charles steps out.
In football that would be a ‘pic’
in basketball a ‘rub’
but there are no flags here
no fouls or whistles
we’ve practiced this for years
sheering away, steering away
misguided messieurs
.
.
A song for this:
Cannock Chase by Labi Siffre
I have a lot of enemies
Who hate me through-and-through:
They dare to disagree with me
On what they ought to do.
They push their narrow ways on me,
And soon it may be you,
By claiming we must tolerate
Their novel point of view.
With such abundant captious foes
You’d think I’m in a fix,
But there’s no need for worrying;
I’m onto all their tricks.
Their argument won’t stand a chance;
They’ll have to take their licks,
For since they disagree with me
I know they’re dumb as bricks.
Someone smart
told me yesterday
you never really
know the meaning
of a word until
you meet
someone or
something
that fits the word
perfectly and then
the word becomes
a catamount leaping
into your mind.
I didn’t agree
until yesterday
when I met you.
Odds are you feel
the same way too.
Donal Mahoney
INSUFFERABLE
Insufferable
Some people misconstrue
Towards native blood
Written: July 18, 2015
The soul I thought I could once trust,
my feelings for her have turn to dust.
This person who was the light of my life,
has deserted me to rot in strife.
My life mate I once called her,
now, not one word spoken will I be deterred.
She was my wife or so I thought,
but strung along I was, all for not.
Cannot be consoled or bargained with,
to me, her life now is just a myth.
The bane of my existence,
she will always give me resistance.
As if she was born to hate me for all time,
the life that we once had sublime.
Why must this woman be so insufferable?
I take the day's one after another,
even after a second attempt to end my life, my soul smothers.
Like I'm living a bad dream,
destined to mourn and scream.
Sitting on a sun-ripened block
colossal.
Sitting in the sun again
I try to control
and strip my clothes,
look my best
for the Colossus of Rhodes.
If I could be satisfied and told
of a refresh of feeling and sense:
the intimacy of this heat.
If I could be battered and rolled
and leavened like sourdough-
but this is mine alone.
The uneventful cold
and safety of home is lost
to the North – these outside rooms
make me sweat and slow
this feels nothing like a room,
nothing like the bold industry
of an air-conditioned hole,
and I have never been so wet
and on display;
this is more the lucid glass
of an inveterate fishbowl.
Above me,
the canopy bails out sun
and fights and tries to fill
this bloating, oily green:
a raging furnace burning fervent
with windows, door and roof
open to the colder night.
But wind cannot displace the intimate sun,
the leaves cannot shade,
and what shade remains
will not guard
against the Yard’s invective gaze.
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