154 lbs of dead wait

The way we found him,
I’m pretty sure that’s not what he wanted us to see.
His blood was running like a confession from his nose,
trying to feed some emptying reservoir.
There was a chance this was a cry for help,
but most likely
by this time his voice had become horse,
and all his shouting had amounted to nothing more than
eyes balling his,
and blank expressions from people he wanted to be caught by.

When you’ve explained all your arguments
and found no competitor,
unfortunately,
you will have to admit that you’re right.

It’s an ugly fight when you’re stood bloody faced
in the corner of a ring
you didn’t even want to be in.

© David Selby 2011

Half way up a hill, shouting for us to get on

It was just that one time that he’d fell asleep in the road of a morning, but that was enough to have a car ride over his leg and smash his thigh open. The car didn’t stop, it was too early.
I never really knew him till his thirty something birthday, when he rolled up to the gates at my flats, phoning and buzzing, tapping and shouting, and me thinking a whole night was about to begin. I didn’t see him that often.
At a music festival he’d gone blackout on Dutch pill dust, Mandy and Sunshine, we dressed him up like he was in the C.I.A. and he spent the next two hours marking perps and checking through handbags. When you’re awake for 32 hours and then have a snooze in a baking portaloo, things tend to ride out that way. He’d lost it. He told me how to gather my believers on a RyanAir, and when I suggested he drink some water, he demanded I,” Either listen and understand, or fuck off and stop wasting” his “time”. I wasn’t, I was trying to get it back.
After all this, the way I’d seen him so honestly, he stood there outside my flats, phoning and buzzing, tapping and shouting, and when I asked what he wanted to do the whole night, I saw he only wanted the drugs.

© David Selby 2012

Art Reborn

In the epic financial downfall
of late 2012
in an act
to conserve resources
the Terrible decision was made
for the axing of
the BBC’s most relevant
and demographically representative show
Eastenders.

Tears cascaded into streams
into rivers
into an ocean of regret
and many financiers were driven
to take their own lives.

I,
in my infinite servitude to mankind
took the decision to
(completely of charity)
fill the artistic void
felt by the masses.

Every night at 8pm
for one full hour
and for countless hours in omnibus on Sundays
live
infront of millions of viewers
would stand completely bereft of clothes
and punch myself in the dick
while crying.

For many years this sated
the Entertainment needs
of the masses

until 2017
when Terry Lewis
and income tax inspector
from Halifax
broke into the studio
and screamed
“This Isn’t Art”
to which I replied
“Art Is Dead”
for which I received an award
for Expression
from Russell Brand
at The Wella Shockwaves Awards For Something.

© David Selby 2012

Last night you told me you were an idiot, and today I found out you are a liar.

Every sunset is unique
but they always bore the shit out of me,
and I have now emptied my bowels
for the last time.

Yours sincerely
I have barely begun
but here’s my signature
all brown
and smelly
and a request
put in
for my final wish

that
when I first learned to ride a bike
I had never have stopped peddling.

© David Selby 2011