(Hangover Poems)

HANGOVER QUILLS

I am very hungover today

And I will work on poetry

I read your poems Pooja Nansi

And they reminded me of

A time when I wore a broken

Healing wretched heart

Like a pin on my lapel

Men I couldn’t really tell

Apart fell in to my lap

Like drink spills, I

Didn’t really miss them

When they’d gone

*

I woke up with no recollection of how and why

Top half still on (bra and all)

Bottom half relegated to the floor

Lamps still on and bright white light

Flooding in from the window and at first

You’re numb from the truth which is

Oh no. It’s daylight and last night I drank too much.

Then it’s the dread of what happens next

If I move? And then it’s some odd recurring thought patterns

That flit in and out of dreams or delusions or both;

I am at a training camp where you must raise your hand

And share with the faceless class an occasion of

Heartbreak and humiliation

No body makes to move so I raise my hand and yell

Quite loudly – a time I waited for someone who never came

I get some nods of approval

I wake and I crawl to fill my glass with water and

Sup and wait and set my alarm to be back again

At that camp but it’s an assault course this time

In the dimmed dark, it’s wet like Scotland outside

Inside my friends are climbing walls and it feels

Ominous. The one I love has an accident, grisly

Head splits open and comes to sit by me

And I look at his smashed skull with brain bits but his face

Still looks fine to me and I need to wake up before

I am sick with horror and dread and fear of it all

It’s a dream you sick sad fuck

*

I will sleep on my desk

As the ticker tape rolls

As the typewriter clicks

And flags wave for goals