No It Isn't

Something odd happened today.

I read a poem authored by a writer whom I normally respect very highly

and I didn’t like it. What’s more it’s not just that I didn’t like it, but I felt uncomfortable for not liking it, as though I hadn’t earned the right yet, as though I was in no position to judge, as though my taste wasn’t sophisticated enough and that I still had a way to go before any criticism of such a gorgeous talent entered my head.

Still,

(dismissing insecurity by the time-tested method of willful ignorance, eyes on keyboard and pen and paper and not on screen)

I thought it was lazy and the references too obvious,

too pessimistic, an unfortunate departure, inspiring me not like before,

inspiring still but for the wrong reasons.

(Yes, there is a beach beneath the streets.)

If you are ever standing outside of a conversation where people are talking about an exciting new band that you discovered a year ago the same sense of building frustration will greet you. The two tramps who hold hands as they share a can of beer and scream at each other in a nightclub doorway at two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon have more in common with me than the gathering crowd spilling out of a pub,

which isn’t a thought I thought I would ever write, and to be honest doesn’t ring true. Not fully. Not yet.

It’s weirdly disappointing, anyway, this poem I read and didn’t take to, as though I was being lied to even though not a word of it was false,

like trying to, or having to, remind yourself that Kenny Dalglish was once a very fine footballer,

or that Luiz Suarez still is.

Actually I suppose it might be the opposite.

 

You snore, but I like the way you looked in that dress,

sort of thinking. One time I saw a man sneeze so powerfully that he took a run-up and finally exploded bent over like a fast bowler, staring down at the unlucky recipient of his delivery, a full toss, not a bouncer, thank goodness.