Tuesday 10 December 2013

The Conduit



‘Did I tell you I’ve started writing poetry,’ this was meant to look like a throw away comment, but the way Paul puffed out his chest as he said it gave away his pride. He’d obviously been searching for an opportunity to announce his latest project all evening. 

‘Really’ said Jake not quite sure what to make of this, Paul had always seemed about as poetic as a sewage works.
‘Yeah, well actually it is more like the poetry writing me.’ 
‘You’ve lost me,’ Jake shook his head, if that was the turn of phrase Paul was using in speech, it didn’t bode well for the poetry. ‘Well it’s amazing. I pick up a pen and paper and then I go into a kind of trance, it’s not me writing it’s the spirits, I'm just the conduit.’ 
Jake looked at his friend with what he hoped was a look dripping with skepticism, it was. 
‘It’s true,’ Paul protested. They contact me and I channel their thoughts. Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth, I'm allowing the greats to continue writing from beyond the grave.’ 
Jake laughed, he could only guess Paul was joking, but the hurt look on Paul’s face suggested otherwise. Jake quickly pulled an earnest face. 
‘So can I read some?’ Paul’s face lit up, 
‘I’ve got one here.’ He declared getting a neatly folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.
I guessed you had, thought Jake taking the sheet from the new Shelley. 
 Paul had obviously used his best handwriting to copy out the poem. Jake read it trying to keep his face in neutral, aware of his friend’s eager expression opposite.

Pop Queen

You asked me what I saw in you,
So I smiled and held you tight;
I said I loved the way you looked and
The way you treat me right.
I said I think you’re beautiful
intelligent suave witty,
but what I really liked about you
was you had the new Pulp CD.
So don’t you go and finish with me
I couldn’t stand the rejection
It’s not so much the sex I’d miss
As your brilliant record collection. 


It was getting harder to keep the neutral look, the poem was awful, Jake looked at Paul searching his face for a clue that this was some elaborate practical joke, but Paul looked deadly serious. 
‘So what do you think?’ Paul asked eager for some positive reinforcement. Jake looked at the paper, then at Paul, then Looked around the bar for a hidden camera. There were none. God, what was he going to say?

3 comments:

  1. ahahaha! makes me laugh again! .
    ...instead of words why not just try with a smiling face? :-)

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  2. Hehhehe..... This poem isn't awful,it's amusing. How about a career of a stand-up comedian:)?

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