Living It Down

Misery follows me
into the supermarket,
takes the nice things from my basket:
the Tunnock's Teacakes, peanut butter and crisps
and replaces them
with brown rice, Ryvita and courgettes.

Sadness walks in my shadow.
In my King Lear he whispers sibilantly,
his unrelenting negativity,
or alternatively
he whistles tunelessly
the songs of L. Cohen:
songs about Suzanne,
Nancy and Marianne,
while I walk around this small town.
A small town for a small man.

Like rats or spiders or another episode of Flog It!
You're never more than six feet away
from the black fug of nothingness:
the blank-faced numbing eternity
that turns all days into night
and makes each night an end of days.

B.R. 30/09/2018