I stand

against the crowd

I stand out from the crowd

I am an individual

odd

different

singular

misfit

awkward in my comfort

edgy in my skin

alive in my own atomic way.

I live my say

I give the best shot I can

every day.

I stand against the crowd

of wasters who fritter

their life away their way.

I waste my life my way

I fritter my days into

the oblivion I fashion

every step I say.

because I am who am

me

Condemned to be myself

I stand out from the crowd

comfortable in my discomforting way

that comes from every pore

every sore

every score of my expressions.

It’s my art

the heart of my song

the spleen that cleans my blood

seen in all my glory every time

I stand against the crowd.

Each and every difference

friction

grating

unconforming

uncomplying

understandable me.

See that fella

hovering on the edge

the one who isn’t fitting in

the one with the shifty eyes

the glint of his own.

You can smell

he’s an outsider

a weirdo

an awkward one

an individual

heart

a body of imagining

power

wealth

stealth

scheming to survive

the crowd

the collective view

the “what we all think”

thinkers.

I stand against the crowd

I stand out from the crowd

away from the crowd

proud of my own way

fiddling the melody

composed of notes

I’ve assembled from the crowd

playing the game I’ve invented

the rules I’ve annunciated

predicated on the shoulders

of giants who have fallen

in battle

against the crowd

castigated on shoulders

of heroes that have died

for the cause of being

themselves.

I reject the way of the crowd

every time my heart pumps

blood from the flat of my sole

to the peak of my imagination.

Consternation

I will cause.

Conflagration

I promise.

The instigation of the self

opinionated

author of my fate

creator of my faith

born to be wild

not filed away in a box.

I defy

I stand against the crowd

that would

categorise me

classify me

entomb me in place

where they ignore me

where they make me safe

from causing a splash

from making a difference

from changing

the course of history

the dreams of others

the Universe.

For such a cause

I stand against the crowd

I stand out from the crowd

to welcome you

fellow traveller

fellow awkward person

follower battler

for your way.

For your way is my way too

your way is yours

my way is mine

our way stands out from the crowd

We stand against the crowd.

We stand up for ourselves

We stand who stand.

Against the crowd

Unto death.

WE STAND.

The pen is always heavy,

when it’s months since you lifted it.

The weight of the space left behind

undressed, unaddressed.

Time without colour,

days without commas,

seconds stripped asunder,

drunk on the spirit of everlasting 

full stops.

———

This pen has a cough,

the sign of an infected life

lived as if there was no editor

round the corner

waiting.

No publisher

cracking teeth,

chewing toenails,

waiting 

for the pen to impregnate the page with filth, 

for the ink to copulate with lines 

that conceive parables, 

that deceive imaginations 

so much that the nib cries for rest, 

prays for time off 

howls for sleep, 

from having to be so good 

and having to deliver best-selling sentences,

gobsmacking phrases, 

gut-wrenching couplets.

——

No poet needs a pen. 

The essential requirement for poetry is a mouth, 

a voice box, 

a larynx, 

lungs. 

We have ways of transcribing your dung,

software to soften your crudities, 

Code.

——

Give us your guts, your flint, your rock.

—

We can knock you into marketable shape. 

Give us your foulest wake, 

your Finnegan.

I’ll even take your Sappho to bed 

and snore ‘til dawn, 

with her panting for more. 

I’ll make Shakespeare disappear,

and Bashō re-appear 

as a disgruntled dung beetle, 

before I grant your pen

the right to light the rite of the brightening word-scape. 

——

The Pen, 

R.I.P.,

survived lovingly by its mother’s quill, 

its significant other Bottle of spirits, 

its children Procrastine and Prostatinus – 

lies with coffin open all night 

to the quickening sky, 

in the front room of OMani’s Bookshop,

in the toilet of your treadmill, 

in the dustbin of your mind, 

in the gutter of your good manners, 

waiting for eternity, 

and, if that’s not long enough, tough on you, 

with your expectations of Heaven, 

with your confidence in being reincarnated 

as the elephant god of wisdom, 

or with at least a modicum of respect 

for how you’ve served

the progeny of cave carvings,

the issue of hieroglyphical outbursts,

the offspring of juggled alphabets, 

and the latest emojis. 

Trend-setter you, 

cursed be thy name.

—— 

No matter how heavy the pen,

no matter how sick the ink, 

no matter how smelly the script, 

no matter how disreputable the collection, 

the air will carry your sentiments 

alongside the letter Cain wrote to Abel,

the note Judas wrote to Joseph, 

the missive Abraham scribbled to the Buddha, 

all the smoke signals, 

text messages, 

emails, 

phone calls 

and whisperings. 

The wind will amalgamate the lot,

and you will be branded

another infant in the long line.