Yearning

Poem

Always yearning for more.

Start the day with a yearn.
A bit of a yawn
And then a yearn.
When will he learn?
And then the urges kick in.

All fuzzed up on the indefinable this trendy shag happy
Fashion conscious tight t – shirted skinny jeaned hair
Purposefully unkempt to such the right degree as if
To promote architecture over aesthetics this knowingly
Crash bang handsome nonchalant gymnasium frequenter
With his yearning and his urges looking into the mirror
Thinking hmmmm, today’s the day I might meet and forever
Fall in love with
A chubby overweight forty something poet with glasses.

He yearns.
Yearns and urges.
This is what he wants.
You can’t spell
Urge
Without
Urrrrrrrrrr.

Two in the afternoon,
Never been up so early!
Slender fingers
Thumb
Poet dating websites.
Doesn’t see a thing he likes.
They’re all
Hip hop trendy slam heroes
Slippy hip lip spitting split lip
Literary nerds
They’re all
Achingly trendy
Syntax bendy rangers and shouters
Mic crooning pouters
They go from Bard to verse
He’s looking for
Old timer rhymers,
Middle aged and overweight and
Wearers of glasses.
Philip Larkin
He’d do nicely
Thank you.

He yearns.
The pain inside
It burns
He imagines
The ease at which
They squeeze
The poems out of themselves.
They make it look so
Effortless.
He’d like to do the same.
He feels he could
Bang one out
Any second.

Laughing with the lads beer with the lads now
And football with the lads all nonchalant joshing
And mega bants about birds and booze and beer and boobs
And he accidentally lets it slip that he’s always had a thing
For Alan Bennett.
I’m sorry,
Did I say
Alan Bennett?
I meant
Taylor
Swift.

He wants
To spend his years
With sonneteers
Become old and grey
And fade away
With haiku masters
Recover from a hip op
Forgetting all that hip hop
Better fetch a stretcher, man.
How he pines for
John Betjeman.

He yearns.
Sneaks on to
Chubby overweight forty something poet with
Glasses and a shirt and tie dot com
Sees pictures of various midlife
Midspread jovial looking
Z list performance poets
Draped seductively
Over
Typewriters
Library return counters
Art council grant forms
He sees the look of soulless doom
Hidden behind their thick framed glasses
And fixed forced smiles
And he thinks
I’d be there for you
All the time
Every time an audience didn’t laugh
Every time you crashed out the first round
Of the Swindon Poetry Slam
Every time a trendy fresh on the scene
Battle rapper says
Have you been doing this for long?
Bro
Oh,
I’d be there for you.

He yearns.
But the world
It still turns.
He wants a
Chubby overweight forty something poet
With glasses and a shirt and tie and possibly
Spiky hair too.
Oh,
If only there were someone for him.
Just who could it be?
Just who could this person be?
Just who could this person be?