THE ANGER & MANAGEMENT POEMS

 

THE ANGER & MANAGEMENT POEMS

 

 

 

1. I WAS ANGRY WITH MY ORTHODONTIST

But when I took my teeth (blackened, bent)  back to her
It was to learn she had flown (fled, aloft, demonic) the coop and
Was now established in a new (legal, illegal) practice
On the tiny and perhaps fictional (mythical, illusory) Mediterranean island
Of Kïr, leaving disenchanted and foul-mouthed clients (saps, gloops)
Such as myself (I, my own, whose?) to languish impotent in their snaggle-
Toothed and credit card debilitating (habitual, habitual) dismay. My
Anger, which had been around (and around) eight out of ten
Owing to my teeth no longer (Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”) fitting my mouth,
Now rose (ascended, aloft, demonic) to eleven and a half going on twelve;
It was only my preoccupation with our divorce (births, deaths, marriages),
Approaching (here it comes) unemployment, encroaching senility (what?)
And inevitable (almost certainly) death that kept me grounded

 

2. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO COME TO TERMS WITH EXCEL™

Because even if there were (past, present, future) things
I wanted to merge (combine) and center (of attention, focus of)
It is in this life (heaven or hell) impossible (impossible) always to do
What one wants and though my own formatting (body, form, layout, schematic)
Leaves me distant and cold (self-portrait) it is no longer okay for me

To waste my time (live life live) in data bars (pick me up)
With cute icon sets (put me down). I can be good I can be bad and some days
I can be neutral (invisible man). Sometimes I hide. Sometimes I unhide.
And I wonder how it can be understandable to do anything so modernly (totally
Todayly) Ugly. I try and insert a few cells (dungeon dark) but wind up deleting
Some rows (line–ups) and when I try to protect the sheet (loving, doving)
Everything I have made and saved disappears as if by a cruel magic (cruel magic).
These thoughts are so transitory (going going). I am old growing older

I can only make plans as far as lunchtime (greasy spoon, afternoon) and
Instead of storing them here I will use my head my fluffy (feathers, soft) head

 

3. I WANT TO KILL THAT WOMAN SHOUTING INTO HER PHONE

But Death (sleep, eternal slumber) is too good (undeserved) for her
And in the afterlife (oh, not again) she would do the exact same thing
And if the evils (torments, people) of this life continue into the next
She will be shouting (megaphone, broadcast, wake up call) there too
And if there are circles of hell (oh, not again) which circle will she inhabit
Seven (the violent against Nature and Art) seems the likeliest option
But there’s no specific (fixed, target) circle for the eternally (ever and)
Annoying within which to themselves be eternally (timelessly) annoyed
As we awaken every day (dawn, arising) to the sound (voice, air-scrape)
And we wonder (don’t care) who she can be calling every day so early
And imagine the pleasure (divine) to be derived from walking outside
Approaching her unseen and unsuspected (world of her own) armed
With a mighty meat cleaver (graceful Fat Sheba, comeuppance) and
Though sleep eternal slumber (Death) is too far too good for her
It’s all we can think of and is the only pleasing option (no choice)

 

 

Martin Stannard
Illustration Nick Victor

 

 


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One Response to THE ANGER & MANAGEMENT POEMS

    1. The woman shouting into her phone is a human being seeking connection with another human being; this is true also of the poet writing about her and posting it online. In both cases the interlocutor is not physically present. There is something appealing about a faraway Other because she/he can become to some extent an abstraction and thus less confusing and overstimulating than a physical presence. Yet some physical presences can be so exciting! I recall a certain woman in 1986 for example. But to hit someone with a meat cleaver would be way, way too physical. Therefore we need the metaphorical meat cleaver of such art as poetry which also can be a stiletto or a darting fine needle.

      Comment by Mark Halliday on 14 July, 2015 at 3:16 pm

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