Here's a poem I wrote a while ago to cheer up a friend who was feeling somewhat sorry for herself over a rather elongated period of time. It was meant to be reverse psychology to shock her out of it (minus the current), but I think it may have backfired! In which case, I've little to lose by sharing it with you...Worthless Human Being
The Samaritans have gone ex-directory
The vicar's changed his locks
The doctor's struck you off
The postman's nailed up your letterbox
Junk mailers no longer want your disposable income
You owe Reader's Digest free prizes
Your computer recognises you as an ‘illegal manoeuvre’
Your dog has defected with basket, next door
Your family and friends have formed a victim support group
Your mobile phone signal is no more
The birds stop singing when they see you coming
Worms hide.
Colleagues take early lunch and beg transfers to Cairo
Rain falls solely on you from a customised cloud
Alien abductors return you un-vivisected
MI6 can’t be bothered to bug or follow you
Science has donated your body back, Oxfam your clothes.
No one wants your blood or organs
The Library just fines you.
No one will lend you their biro.
You whinging, self-pitying excuse for a person
Yes, you’re not wrong, I can't think of a worse one.
© LS King 2006
I'm just off for some therapy now to address 'friend retention' issues.
1 comment:
'Your Worshipful Odemistress of Oxenford City' I have been extensively perusing your blogeate in search of this particular piece, having heard it so beautifully recited by you at 'The Fox' in Leamington last week. In my haze of self pitying, self indulgent, misery inducing trauma however, I was barely able to grasp the words as you read them so soon after my public admission to being a 'Worthless Human Being', so I wanted to revisit your view of depression aka 'feeling somewhat sorry for one's self over a rather elongated period of time'. Overall I'm impressed by your lack of tolerance of such wretched malingerers as myself. Indeed I used to know a person who was equally intolerant and eventually despatched me from her life, by sending me a brief e-mail with the title 'Termination Of Friendship'. I was deeply touched. When we were 'friends', in the early days of my poem writing 'career' and mental breakdown, she would read some of my doggerel and 'psychoanalyse' it for me. Which was nice. And, when I ventured out into the wilderness community of Leamington Spa, with her encouragement, to such noble instutions as 'MIND', she always introduced me to people as 'The Depressed Poet'. This was both deeply embarrassing and yet oddly respectful of the fact that I am at least one of those things, but on reflection I think if she had introduced me as 'The Worthless Human Being', I feel there would have been no cause for conflict within the monstrously twisted psyche. of my frontal lobe as to the complete 'aptness' of said moniker. Also I might have been more prepared for her getting bored of me before long. Thus I may well have slept better at night and not evolved into a nocturnal species of solitary dehumanity.
However, as regards your poem, whilst I admire its observational and poetic technique, most of the specific references bear no relation to my own experiences. Vicar? Colleagues? friends?, Dog?
Who are these creatures?
Aliens I do recognise. From a distance. I think some of you know them as 'people' but I have never quite come to terms with what makes an alien a person and a person a friend, or vice versa. I was, to be fair, struck off by a GP for going mental in his surgery and, furthermore, have been arrested by the police twice for similar crimes against my humanity. And it is true The Samaritans often got thoroughly bored of my drunken ramblings, all in the true spirit of going fundaMENTALLY bonkers.
I must admit, these days, I quite enjoy telling 'cold calling' salespersons that I would like double glazing and central heating but they will need to speak to my landlord about it, thus desecrating their sale's pitch by digging up my grave of non-house owner, no income status and revealing the true paucity of my dismal existence to their reluctant ears. I like timing the eventual putting the phone down on me moment (rather than the usual procedure where the customer tells the salesperson to f' off), due to me insisting on rambling on about how, why and when I ended up here, to the point where their boredom threshold is breached with a delightful 'click' and the soothing sound of the dialing tone. I now have calculated a 'mean' time of 58.98 seconds for this occasional attempt by me at engaging with humanity, before it disintegrates into a satisfying vision of chaos in the mind of a call centre employee in Cardiff or Calcutta. I then feel able to 'move on' with my life and watch 'Deal Or No Deal' desperately hoping that the shiny, happy idiot bastard contestant in today's guessing game of 'skill' wins 1p. In my other 'mean times' I am generally grumpy, sad, anxious, irritable, tearful or just simply tediously wrapped up in my self-penned psychological currency. Its a mixture of low voltage electricity and obsolete French Francs by the way, which I toss around the house, onto my word processor, inside my brain, or onto the internet. However, I make exceptions to my lack of communication on anything other than an absurdly abstract introspective level where either a) the alien likes cats (despite the fact I'm allergic to them, they are quite cute) or b) Where my self pitying, whinging, gloom mongering poetic soul bearing has induced a hug from someone other than my frail and elderly mother for about the first time since 1829 when I was hauled aboard Stephenson's 'Rocket' by the Duke Of Wellington's Valet. He insisted it wasn't a hug, but it felt pretty good to me!
By the way I used to watch 'Would Like To Meet' avidly with a desperately uncomfortable mixture of intrigue, sympathy, empathy and ultimate envy. Poor sods! Yet all that help and confidence boosting from a team of depressingly (for the untrained viewer) confident 'life coaches' was enlightening for its effect. There but for the grace of God go I..... And, as there is no God, there indeed go I. A landscape of chip wrappings, beer cans, microwave meals, nil self esteem and body shame. Still, it's hardly surprising. I'm told that women are interested in intelligence and a sense of humour in a man and that looks are relatively unimportant, yet I'm sure I read somewhere recently that they don't really mind 'as long as he's got his own teeth and hair'! DRAT!....and, as Dick Dastardly would say, Double Drat. While Muttley just sits there sniggering......
'One out of two, It simply won't do, for those with descernment and taste. A scalp that is pink is like a blocked kitchen sink. It stinks of decaying waste. It puts people off. They mock and they scoff, when they encounter a gleaming bald pate. So the sod with the head, is better off dead, knowing genetics have sealed his fate!'
My blog remains a figment of someone else's imagination, but I intend to reach inside the inner workings of my PC in order to rewire the circuitry to my mind in a manner that results in me finding myself on page one of 'Google' by no later than July 16th 2021.
If you visit the Fox in October, should my brain and body still be functioning on anything other than a purely notional or theoretical basis, and I can stop being so pathetically, nakedly emotional, I am planning to read an uplifting poem that I recently scrawled titled '08457909090'. On the other hand I might be too busy trying to kick the chair from under my feet that night. Who knows?
I no longer talk to them. I prefer writing to talking these days, except at said venue, but I can assure you that should you ever end up catless, jobless, friendless, vicarless, doctorless, postmanless, wormless, digestless, colleagueless and biroless, it may comfort you to know that THEY haven't gone ex-directory! More likely, I get the feeling from reading your blog that your feisty spirit and exceptional mix of stubbornly opinionated yet optimistic self-assuredness will see you through the fog without the slightest need for the interjection of analysts, amateur 'listeners' or medication in order to salvage you from the noose or the paracetemol. Bravo!
Yours, with gratitude and respect:
The Ultimate Worthless Human Being.
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