A NEW HOME

A new hope...

www.michaelpatrickcairney.com

I'm not sure if I will totally migrate. It isn't quite finished, see. And lord knows when it will be.

At the end of the day you're another day older.

The day subsides,

The week is lost,

The students file off home.

The teacher sighs,

And tees all crossed,

Writes a shite wee poem.

Being an Economist

Seem to be doing a lot of raps these days… though calling it a rap seems to be just an excuse for leaving in a lot of dodgy lines.

*****

I’m valued at my hourly rate
Measured choices seal my fate
Make a nest of real estate
Preen myself and out and date
Find a mate and procreate
Drill my child the finest traits
Lest be poor or overweight!
Art and sex I desecrate
As soulful as a piece of eight
From all poor souls with empty plates
And asset pools that underweight
Things.
But as you read please don’t conflate
This bitter tone with outright hate
Without this system so ornate
That reprimands, remunerates
In interest of the gooder great
Our coffee’s cold and our trains run late
No inter-continental freight.
Nothing to alleviate.
…
Sure as sure the wheel predates
Silly fools with wordpressed blogs,
Metal tools and city states.
Man is man and wants more things,
And all the happiness that will bring.

Inadequacy

We're all pretty much inadequate, for most of the things that might occur to us. Even the things that are possible in this world are mostly beyond us. Want to be an Ashanti chieftain? Better luck next life. Stand on the moon? Wrestle a lion? All beyond my feeble endowments. And I, white, male, middle class and exactly average height, would seem to be more equipped than the average poor sod out there. I am the sort that they build aeroplane seats around.

Writing is this writ large. Any glance at the greats of the past makes you feel as though teleported back to some grand ballroom, surrounded by titans waltzing with turns of phrase. They can find me weeping under a table groaning with canapes, "Noone ever taught me this! Noone ever taught me this..."

It is with this in mind that I look puzzled over how most people seem to carry themselves, strutting around as though they meant something. As though their good works were not but filthy rags, as if they were not lumbering, balded perfumed apes. But when the ape confronts you, high shouldered, eyes fired with belief, it fixes you and sees you less than itself. It humiliates, incapacitates.

So the only way to function is to copy. Bind your world like a concubine's feet into whichever tiny twisted direction is in vogue. Armour yourself in baubles of status. Heft knowledge like an axe. Ride your realm till you know it better than you know yourself. Dominate those who fall within, and scorn those without.

Thankyou, My Lady

She has deigned to dance with me,
My lady in the heels,
The gross distaste writ 'cross her face
Is a glimmer of what she feels.

She rigid glides into embrace,
Taut, perfect in her pose.
And I'm soon informed that I'm stood wrong
By a wrinkle in her nose.

I ask of my fair noble queen,
Where I've gone amiss.
She sighs as one so slighted must,
"Not like that, like this."

So I tread on, on toes and heels,
And seconds feel like hours,
And she sighs on dissatisfied
With my telepathic powers.

She gurns as though she took a shit,
And the cesspit was too shallow,
I sweat as though I'm pushing round
Some porcelain wheelbarrow.

Then as awkwardly as we began,
The end of my disgrace.
A proffered hand, a rictus grin,
An instant about face.

I get the point, my lady fair,
I am but a peasant.
But if we are to dance, may I not ask,
Be a little bit more pleasant?

*****

Ah, that feels good to get off my chest.