Everyday Man (Rudiments of Tuesday)

Days require techniques.

Mostly it is waiting.

Deviant conformist,

Backstage, in an armchair,

I scribble a shopping list,

As tame as they come.

I safari through suburbia,

And join another queue,

Shuffling to and fro,

As I watch out for lawbreakers.

Is anybody listening to me?

I don’t listen much myself.

Innumerable faces blur into one,

African masks on English streets.

Weighing up costs and benefits,

I cast spells with a voodoo doll marked “love”.

My eyes fix on nothing,

Embarrassed to stare,to enquire.

Incompetent performances are my forte,

Always ready with an encore;

So hard to learn the script,

And remember my lines.

I think I may have left my life

On the mantelpiece, a kitsch souvenir

From a place half-invented half-forgotten.

The Benedictine horarium

Tells me what time to be.

Periodicity.Tempo.Synchronisation.

Duration.Sequence.

“What did you do at the weekend?”

Diseases of the heart and liver,

I must have had them all...

But what if the patient does not wish to get better?