Cold.
Cold shoulders. Cold heart.
So they say although how would they know?
Tongue picking at teeth for the grits
Of peanut butter.
Filling the fissures you can always feel but never see.
Imagine being allergic?
Planes – that’s where it all goes wrong.
Long trips and spicy dips and look now
At the rain carrying on down the window like a bloody party
Of wet dreams and tight seams.
We interrupt this broadcast with a public service announcement.
Would someone on the Zoom call please feed the cat?
Not comfortable
Sitting here on a strained glute.
Shoot from the hip or shoot for the stars
What’s the difference really?
They’ll all drop like pinballs.
Wrong word, have lost the word
Pins, that’s it, in their tetractys
Shit, my memory these days
Winding down rabbit holes
Looking for syllables
Give me strength
The lengths I go to to stop climbing the walls.
We interrupt this broadcast with a public service announcement.
Would someone on the Zoom call feed the bloody cat?
Boiler purring in the next room
Grumbling and rumbling and pumping out the heat
Delete the sleet, counting sheep
Half asleep.
You there, all of you
In your small frames on my big screen
I scream for ice cream
The night takes flight
Something’s wrong
It’s a false alarm, fake news
Some folk write in a hut
I write here, austere
Too warm now on the top floor
We interrupt this broadcast with a public service announcement
Would someone on the Zoom call prioritise the blasted cat?
Blasted. Now that’s a word I can pick apart with my tongue
Bla sted. Blas ted. Blast ed. Blah Blah Blah.
Bla for me. The rest for all of you.
Blasted, fasted
We’ll all be fasting soon
Lent or rent or virus
Everything conspiring against us.
SANDERLINGS 