Flashback;
It was what you gave me
as I turned on my phone
to see your remark
on another person’s page.
Ignoring my own held advice,
that I don’t have the right
to ever know
what other people think of me,
I read the short snappy sentence,
primed like a grenade,
three second rule blast
which tore my heart in two
and my head blown
to pieces on the rocks of someone
else’s insecurity, jealousy
a spread eagled whore
who likes to spread her
satisfaction
wherever she may find herself;
I deplore the feeling,
I don’t understand jealousy,
I don’t see why you would
ever resort to stooping low,
but then my own insecurity
led me there and I read
and chewed the sentence over
in the style of Ezra Pound,
all one eyed rage,
and found that the station,
the platform and even the carriages
in which you invited me to sit
down, pull up the comfy chair
for its made of spikes, were
just illusions to your sad
and bitter recriminations…
Flashback;
He cannot write,
subtext,
he is a problem, good enough
to pity, to act with sympathy around but
in the end we would rather
just put a bullet through his head,
somewhere against a brick wall
with the outline of others firmly
engraved with hollow point
and dead centre…
subtext subtext
in my head, I just know
that the attack was personal…
but as I slept through exhaustion
I found myself only caring
out of respect for you,
for teachers told me
I should not be allowed near a typewriter,
that was more to do with
that they wanted to groom a series of compliant
secretaries and not someone
who wanted to get the world off his shoulders,
subtext, subtext, subtext…
in the end it boils down fair and square
to you believe in what you believe
and if it makes you happy,
if it makes you feel desirable,
delighted, screaming with joy
as if you have given yourself
the finest of all orgasms
and the ecstatic, enviable and popular
thought to do someone down
to make yourself feel good,
then go ahead, subtext;
for I am happy with my lot.
Ian D. Hall 2016