Featuring Martin Appleby

WISDOM

 

 

I thought you were supposed

to grow wiser as you grow older?

Is that just a fallacy?

A myth that people tell themselves

to trick the brain into believing it?

I am either wise to the con

or my own brain has double bluffed

itself into believing it to be a con,

because I am none the fucking wiser

than I was at any point before.

If I could go back in time and give

my fifteen year old self some advise

it would be to not listen to advise

because most of it is bollocks - 

what a catch twenty two that would be:

to take the advice and forgo any other

or forgo it and listen to the rest.

Fuck. I told you I wasn't fucking wise.

In all honesty, if I could go back now

and re-do this whole life thing again

I would drink more, party harder,

take more drugs, and probably 

not make it to the age that I am now.

Wisdom is in the imagination of the older.

 

 

 

 

SOBER

 

 

I would probably give up 

drinking if it were not for

annoying “sober” people

preaching about how sober they are -

and this is no sleight against

recovering addicts -

but people that used to drink casually

and decided to stop

and now act high and mighty

sitting atop their high horse

looking down at those of us

who still drink casually.

You'd think they were on the brink

of the abyss and pulled themselves

back from the edge.

My biggest fear is that I, too 

would become one of those people

like ex-smokers that love telling you

how easy it was for them to quit

or vegans that remind you constantly

that they're vegan yet they were

the same ones that used to mock you

for being vegetarian as they

polished off plates of meat -

they can all get in the fucking sea.

 

 

 

 

 

WASTER

 

 

I am wasting away

under a pile of waste

my brain space

wasted, taken up

with wasteful thoughts

and witty retorts

for insults I lambaste

myself with

This waste land is treacherous

one false move

one wasted motion

could so quickly

compromise its integrity

and how easy it would be

for the twisted part of me 

to watch the whole thing collapse

again

watch everything crash and burn

as if I haven't learned

a thing

what a waste

this journey would have been.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bio: Martin Apleby is a punk, poet, vegetarian, cider drinking scumbag from Hastings, England. He edits Paper and Ink Literary Zine and runs Scumbag Press – scumbagpress.co.

New Release: John D. Robinson SONGS OF BASTET (Scumbag Press, 2021)

 

English poet John D. Robinson has a new chapbook coming out on Friday 26 November 2021 through Scumbag Press. He says of the chap, “The poems within are ALL about cats: the cover art and promo art are taken from my paintings.”

 

Here is a poem from the collection: 

 

ON THE DAY THAT OSCAR LEFT ME

I awoke terribly fragile,

shaking and frightened  and

I called in sick,

an ex lover

telephoned and asked

for money

which I didn’t have,

the backyard flooded

and my pot dealer

had gone on

holiday,

the radio broadcast

stories of tragedy

and sadness and

of wars

and payday was

two weeks away;

Oscar had suddenly

shown up a few

months back, wailing

and crying and

hungry and we made

friends and he moved

in and I called him

Oscar and he ate

whatever I could

give him and he

seemed thankful and

then one day he

didn’t come back 

and I

knew that he

wouldn’t return;

Oscar was a beat hobo cat;

I had a real lousy

day the day

that Oscar

left me.

 

(the poem is posted with the permission of the writer)

 Buy the chapbook here upon release: https://www.scumbagpress.co.uk

New Release: John D.Robinson & Pete Donohue A GALLON OF RED, A GALLON OF WHITE (Scumbag Press, 2021)

 

14 wine soaked poems by John D. Robinson and Pete Donahue. Each chapbook comes with an original broadside from each poet. A5 size. Limited to 30 copies.

But the chap here:https://www.scumbagpress.co.uk/product/a-gallon-of-red-a-gallon-of-white