ANEJACULATION

 

That Night I last took an attempted O. D.

I was visited by many friends.

If it hadn’t been for their voices

I would be a fresh vegetable by now.

The O. D. took me to hospital:

it was genius of me to survive but

coming down from the chemical complexities of it all,

I lost the ability to ejaculate. Now

the lovely local lasses say

if I haven’t got the juice for them I’m gay.

I haven’t, and haven’t got a clue

what exactly I am supposed to do.

I’m 43, hardly a time to be coming out -

and living here is hardly the place.

Skint, single, mentally ill, medicated,

unemployed, carless, living at my mum’s,

I struggle on. By now I have heard

‘The Making Of Five Leaves Left,’

that Nick Drake album, on Spotify,

and recognised that apart from

‘Dream With Open Eyes’ and

maybe a few more, my songs are

bloody awful. Hearing a true musical

genius puts me off trying. Still,

I have the written word and my leisure.

I once dreamed poetry could save me.

More recently I organised but five

to keep from the inchoate morass.

Currently I am writing on page

754 of a file called ‘Almost Anon’

which is no use to anyone. When

I shrank it down to five collections

I was told to start with a babystep instead.

So that was when five poems were uploaded

to a poetry blog called Write Out Loud.

And if this is me coming out, I didn’t

foresee it happening like this. I

didn’t foresee it happening at all.

One would suppose coming out

is meant to be a celebration; but here’s me

with this grey, ashen crap and a mouth

that tastes chalky from too much tepid tea.

I am trying to counter-act the taste

in my mouth with full fat milk.