The problem with punching

The problem with punching

is you’ll hurt yourself

When you swing your arms

your knuckles are well

but when you have finished

you are hurt too

what is this self-harming thing that you do?

You want to hurt them

but you also hurt you

now it might be just me

but hurting seems like a bad thing to do.

So stop hurting each other

put your knuckles away

save those silly things

for no other day.

If you really must punch

then go to the gym

hit your knuckles on a punchbag

and wear out your skin.

Then you will see

that this hurting is bad

and if punchbag’s could talk,

you’d learn that they’re sad.

Our lives are quite short

compared to the Earth’s

is it really so great to spend time

spreading hurt?

So put down your fists

even if it’s just for one day,

try hugging instead

and see what they say.

People might like you

if you stop hurting them

you can make a new friend

or perhaps you’ll make ten.

Hurting is bad

I prefer to hug

because I don’t think

I would make a good thug.

My knuckles are soft

and my arms are thin

I was born to hug,

that’s my thing.

I don’t get too angry

I’m too busy smiling,

Try a little love

instead of your fighting.

This life is so short

I want my days

to be filled with smiles

all over the place.

When you see a smile,

you’ll know you put it there

and that is the best thing

in the world you can share.

So put down your fists

even if it’s just for one day,

try hugging instead

and see what they say.

People might like you

if you stop hurting them

you can make a new friend

or perhaps you’ll make ten.

Dance

Start the dance

without the music

dance until you can no more,

shake your hips and tap those toes

watch how quickly your night goes.

The music stops

and then you drop

no more dancing to dirty pop

dancing dancing

all the night

With your friends

so it’s all right

Smiles all round

you hit the ground

then get into bed

safe and sound.

 

The time that went.

Look at all the time that went,

the months we lived,

the days we spent,

Like children in a sweet shop,

we spent them how we wanted,

when you have the world ahead,

the time´s there to be flaunted.

 

When you look behind you,

it´s easy to forget,

to check yourself and see once more,

what´s coming up ahead,

so turn those eyes of yours around,

Before you bump your head.

Potato

Potato! Potato!

You should be a chip!

What else will I do with all of these dips?

Potato! Potato!

You have let me down,

So you’ll sit in the cupboard until you ooze brown.

When you can’t find your way.

When you’ve just hit the hay

and you can’t find your way,

you lie there just thinking of things,

 

There’s a world with your map

and it’s under your cap,

when you find it the people all sing.

 

Dreams dreams wonderful dreams,

they make you laugh,

they make you scream

When you wake up,

you’ll start to cry

or sing yourself a lullaby.

 

Dreams are heaven,

Dreams are hell,

But at least,

dreams don’t smell.

Time to be quiet.

I am under strict instructions to sit comfortably and be quiet. I have no real problems with being quiet. In fact, I have been relatively quiet since I have been in Spain. For if there is something I want to shout, I will have to do it in Spanish and by the time I have found out how to say it, quite often, it is no longer needed.

 

Things like ‘I’d move my bag if I were you because there’s a pigeon on top of the building and it’s lining up a shot.’

 

or

 

‘It’s raining.  Gadzooks, who has an umbrella I can borrow?’

 

Rain doesn’t last long here. I learned that at the weekend.

 

Now I will rewind a couple of days and tell you the story of how I came to be staying in bed on a Tuesday with the intention of being quiet.

 

On Saturday night, I went out with my friends and slowly made my way back the next morning aided by strangers who all seem to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Barcelona’s locations, bus times, and the English language, right when you need it most.

 

On Sunday I awoke and I took a coffee for breakfast because my awakening was too late to eat breakfast so I waited for lunch. I then dined and became very full and had a bit to drink as the weather was nice and white wine tastes nice in the sun.

 

This is where the story takes a dark turn. For those of you who dislike dark turns, now would be a good time to stop reading. Skip to the end, I’ll write you an alternative ending. For those of you who don’t know what a dark turn is, I’m with you. It’s too words next to each other essentially but instead of editing it out I will spend more words commenting on my lack of editing.

 

After lunch I decided to engage in a wee kick about in the garden.

 

The garden is largely grass with a tree near the edge.

 

Whilst chasing a football, I ran into that tree. The football was on the ground and the tree wasn’t in my line of vision so I head-butted that branchy demon like it was a common bouncy castle and I bounced right back off it.

 

I felt a little strange and sat down a little after this. I put a lot of what I was feeling down to tiredness from the night before and thought nothing more of it.

 

Yesterday (which was Monday), I went to school as normal and tried to carry on but I kept having dizzy spells and feeling queasy. I couldn’t really eat lunch and after this went home. I wasn’t feeling normal. In cartoons, when someone bumps their head and their are clouds and birds flying around their head, this is no fiction. I spent the afternoon with some clouds and a lovely bird call Gerald. (The clouds were called Larry and David.)

 

I managed to make it home and later when the family got home from work at about 10 o’clock, they said they would take me to see a doctor. We had a little dinner, by this point I was rather peckish and I enjoyed my omelet with green beans (on the side).

 

One of the boys was already with their aunt in Barcelona and we dropped the other off at another aunt’s house. Then we headed to the hospital. I apologized for dragging the parents out so late on a Monday night and they told me not to worry about it. I checked into the hospital at about 23.37 give or take a few seconds.

 

One doctor tried to make me feel dizzy but it didn’t work, then another doctor gave me a massage with the intention of hurting me. It worked. My neck and upper spine were incredibly painful when she applied pressure to them.

 

I then had to get topless so that they could x-ray me. I thought it strange that the camera can see through my skin but not my t-shirt. I had to strike dramatic poses so that they could see my bones well.

 

I then went and they took photos of my brain. There was a thing that spins round and round your head whilst you lie inside a big weird plastic cave. Considering I was still feeling dreamy, I definitely could have been my own t-shirt in a tumble dryer at this point in time.

 

So after these tests, the outcome was that my head was fine. However I do have a bit of my brain which is lighter than the rest. The doctor said this was the part of my brain that makes me awesome. He actually said English. Either way, it’s nothing to worry about.

 

The x-ray of my neck showed that I had strained my neck when I bounced back off the tree. So my head was fine but my neck had suffered the forced of my encounter with the tree.

 

I’m now taking drugs which make me feel even more dreamy and all my energy is spent on staying quiet. There’s no one hear to talk to so it would be quiet strange to be noisy anyway.

 

I have a fairly loose grip on reality as it goes but for the next week I think it will be looser.

 

There we go. Well, running into a tree was definitely up there with silly things I really didn’t need to do. But it also had fantastic consequences. After we had been to the hospital, I thanked the parents for taking me and apologized for getting them out and about on a Monday night which is probably when they need that the least.

 

They told me not to say thank you or apologize because as long as they can help then they are happy to and as long as I am under their roof then they will treat me like family whether it’s for a party, the hospital, the good times, the bad times or the boogie.

 

So doing stupid things can have fantastic outcomes.

 

*Alternative ending.

After lunch I met an alien who was mainly purple with yellow spots. It resembled that attachment on the hoover with the weird circle of brushes around it. The one whose purpose I’ve never understood.

 

The alien said to me to be quiet. I’d been drinking so I thought, yes, you’re absolutely right. I will never speak a work of this again.

 

In fact technically, I still never have.

 

The End.

Noems.

So it is May which means two things. Well, it means more than two things but if gives me the excuse to talk about two things in particular. Actually I’m going to make up a third because I feel that two just isn’t enough.

 

The first thing it means is that it is a different month to last month. Obviously.

 

It is no longer April, or write-a-poem-every-day-so-everyone-can-see-how-much-time-you-are-spending-slacking month as it will be called in years to come.

So this means I don’t have to write any poems but that doesn’t mean I won’t. I’m aware that people from all over the shop have been reading these poems and I have taken great pleasure in sharing them with you so it is inevitable that there will be more.

SO DON’T PANIC.

 

Secondly, and most importantly; it is a month until my Birthday. I will be twenty-three. Which has got me thinking and thinking a lot. And you have to be careful when you’re thinking a lot because eventually you’re cheese on toast will catch alight in the grill. It is only a matter of time.

 

Now, this has got me thinking many things. But the main one is ‘what do I want to do before I’m thirty?’

 

I’ve made a suggestions to myself and as a result, if I have had a job as a lobby pianist in a hotel by that time then I will consider myself to be on the right tracks.

 

The problem is, I don’t plan because I can’t decide, and then I end up sauntering along like a duck on the river. Now don’t get me wrong, those ducks are doing a great job. But I don’t want to be a duck. Yo soy humano as the Spanish say.

 

I feel like planning things to do before I’m thirty is a bit stupid. It’s like planning which toilets you’re going to stop at on a journey when you don’t know how much water you will have drunk that day. It’s something that needs to be done, but I’ll work it out along the way. I feel this is a good plan. It is however, subject to change.

 

Thirdly, ham.