Tuesday Poem: Now What?

A good question

here in the living room

at quarter to three.

All the others

are in bed.

They're drawn in pairs

& yet again we've drawn the bye.

Have a coffee - Thanks.

What's on the telly? Static.

A penny for your thoughts;

I've wrung the last

thin juices out of mine.

Have another orange, go on,

be a devil.

Stuff a chilli up your nose,

see a doctor, read a book,

save the world in fifteen minutes.

Put on your hat & coat & gloves

then take them off again.

Credit note: First published in Men Briefly Explained (IP, 2011). Mary Cresswell gave Men Briefly Explained an excellent review in issue 75 of Takahe, and this is one of the poems she quoted in her review.

Tim says: There have rumblings - rumblings which are entirely justified - about the continuing lack of new Tuesday Poems from me. My only defence is that I'm not actually writing poetry at the moment - I'm writing short stories. But I may have to break the habit of a lifetime and put unpublished poetry up here before long. Poetry editors all around the world will weep at the loss of the cherished first rights to publish my beautiful poems... (Cups ear, listens for sounds of weeping. None heard.)

But no matter! This week, I thought it was fully worth posting another poem from Men Briefly Explained, given Mary's excellent review. This is the oldest poem in the book, written when I was single and lived in Dunedin. It didn't make it into my first collection, Boat People, but it fitted nicely into Men Briefly Explained.

The Tuesday Poem: You can check out all the Tuesday Poems at the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the centre, and the other Tuesday Poets' work linked from the left.