Diary of a Somebody Read online

  ‘What’s her name?’ Mary asked.

  ‘She’s called Liz.’

  ‘Well, let’s just hope that Liz passes mustard,’ said Toby Salt with a smirk.

  For one moment, I thought Kaylee was going to thump him. I opened my mouth with the intention of advising her to take him with a grain assault but, thinking better of it, popped another pistachio inside it instead.

  Wednesday January 10th

  I have decided to fight fire with fire to fight my fear of being fired.

  I shall ‘imagineer’ suitably impressive corporate sound bites – or, as I like to think of them, ‘jargon bombs’ – to drop into my report. To prove I can walk the talk, I first need to talk the walk. Just like performing poetry on stage, it is simply a matter of bluff and self-confidence. Seven hours of intensive ‘boiling the ocean’, ‘squeezing the sponge’, and ‘finding ourselves behind the eight ball’ and my report has at last begun to take shape.

  All this industry went on amidst a backdrop of angry thoughts about Toby Salt. He has no appreciation of how difficult it is to make poems rhyme. It is far easier to find words that don’t rhyme than ones that do and I have statistics to back me up on that.

  Thursday January 11th

  Tweets

  I think that I shall never meet

  A poem lovely as a tweet.

  A tweet with words and thoughts compressed

  For me to press against my breast.

  A tweet that stays with me all day,

  Or ’til I put my phone away;

  A tweet that I may marvel at,

  With a photo of a dancing cat;

  Or one that has mistakes within

  That I may point out with a grin.

  So shove your Larkin and your Keats,

  Send to me your blessed tweets!

  Before settling down in front of an old episode of Morse, I plucked up the courage to look at my social media accounts. These days, it is not enough for the Modern Poet merely to write poems: audiences must be engaged with and poetic content must be optimised for the purpose of platform and search engine discoverability.

  I noted that on Twitter, I have now optimised myself for twenty-three people. Toby Salt has somehow mustered 174 followers. I clearly need to deepen my digital footprint and I have made a vow, with the cat as my witness, to share more of my poems with my foolhardy followers as a next tentative digital baby step.

  Meanwhile on Facebook, Sophie has updated her status to ‘In a Relationship’. This news is accompanied by a smiley-faced emoji. She has also been tagged in a photograph with somebody calling himself ‘Stuart Mould’. In the picture, they appear to be undertaking some kind of candlelit dinner together. Sophie looks very happy about something; I can only assume it’s the gammon.

  Friday January 12th

  The Man at Number 29 has put his general landfill out on the day for recycling: it’s a basic bin-day error. Even Dave, Martin and Marvin seem to be able to get that right.

  He’s not my only neighbour with troubles: Mrs McNulty came around in a state of agitation, prattling on about a rather spurious incident involving her dog in the night-time. She claims that her golden Labrador, Aleister, has spontaneously combusted. She pointed at a pile of ashes in her back garden which was where she said she’d last seen him, sitting there quietly and gazing sadly up at the moon.

  I have my doubts: partly because it looked more like cigarette ash to me (Mrs McNulty is a committed smoker of Gauloises); and partly because she claimed the same thing had happened to Mr McNulty following his disappearance, although it’s common knowledge he lives three streets away in a pebble-dashed fifties semi with a woman named Sandra, whom he met at sales conference in Derby. Also, Mrs McNulty has never owned a dog.

  Saturday January 13th

  4-4-2

  This line up,

  Lord help us!

  Four down. In

  dire need of

  some help. We

  lose some, we

  lose some. No

  plan, only an

  ache that we

  call hope. My

  idea? Team of

  goalkeepers.

  Trudging back from football (0–11), I found myself man-marked by Dylan, who regaled me with tales of his mother’s new boyfriend – or ‘Stuart’, as he seems so desperate to be called:

  ‘Mum says she’s not used to having a proper man around. He’s put those shelves up in the sitting room – the ones you were always promising to do – and last Sunday he cooked us all a roast. He even drives me to football practice.’

  And then, going in with his studs showing:

  ‘Why did you never learn to drive, Dad? Do poets drive – or are they always passengers?’

  I told Dylan that perhaps it would be for the best if he could stop talking in order to conserve his energy for the final three miles’ walk home.

  Sunday January 14th

  In October, Poetry Club will be heading off on our much-anticipated Poets on the Western Front trip. We will be visiting northern France and Belgium to see, amongst other things, the trench where Henri Barbusse was a stretcher-bearer, the hill where Ivor Gurney was wounded, the battlefield which inspired Wilfred Owen’s ‘Spring Offensive’ and the cellar in which he wrote his last letter. Having recently taken over from Mary as club treasurer, I spent the morning reviewing the finances. All subs were up to date; even Toby Salt’s, unfortunately, giving me no excuse to harass him.

  As the cat took up occupancy on me for the rest of the day, I took another look at Twitter. Last night, in the spirit of my renewed commitment to social media, I’d shared a poem called ‘The Day My Dog Spontaneously Combusted’:

  there he was,

  chasing sticks,

  doing tricks,

  and all that stuff

  next minute, woof

  Since I posted this poem, my follower count has gone down to seventeen (Toby Salt now has 196). What’s more – to add insult to invisibility – I’ve received a series of angry, foul-mouthed tweets. Initially, I thought that I’d experienced my very first real-life troll, but then I noticed that they’d been sent by the RSPCA.

  Monday January 15th

  Inbox

  Janice is on the war path for my report and I fear for my core deliverables. I spent most of the day holed up in the stationery cupboard following a last-minute, eleventh-hour crisis of confidence. Although initially pleased with my jargonautical exploits (only this morning I had added in the sentence, ‘We need to stop chasing butterflies if we’re to develop game-changing marketecture that will enable us to grab wallet share’), I was seized with a sudden fear that it was utterly devoid of all meaning and content. That all it added up to was a great big warm bowl of nothing.

  I managed to slip out undetected at about 6.30pm thanks to some diversionary tactics outside Janice’s office from Tomas, who cleans the second-floor officles, involving a squeegee on a telescopic handle and a 500ml bottle of Windolene trigger spray.

  Tuesday January 16th

  I phoned in sick in order to regroup myself mentally. As it always does, the act of pretending to be ill made me actually feel ill, and I spent much of the day asleep in bed, stirring occasionally in response to neighbourly sounds of UK grime and Mrs McNulty’s sawing.

  But even feigned illnesses begin to wear off eventually, and by the evening I was able to finish off the reordering of my bookcases. I placed the last book – 97819123666158 – on the shelf and stood back, the better to admire my achievement. It was magnificent! To celebrate, I thought I’d treat myself to a couple of stories from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes but, having spent fifteen minutes attempting to locate it, I gave up and went back to bed.

  Wednesday January 17th

  How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors

  It’s not rocket surgery.

  First, get all your ducks on the same page.

  After all, you can’t make an omelette

  without breaking stride.

&
nbsp; Be sure to watch what you write

  with a fine-tuned comb.

  Check and re-check until the cows turn blue.

  It’s as easy as falling off a piece of cake.

  Don’t worry about opening up

  a whole hill of beans:

  you can always burn that bridge when you come to it,

  if you follow where I’m coming from.

  Concentrate! Keep your door closed

  and your enemies closer.

  Finally, don’t take the moral high horse:

  if the metaphor fits, walk a mile in it.

  Still at home. Hiding from your responsibilities may perhaps not be the most mature response, but at least it is a response – one that says, having carefully considered all the options available to me, I have taken the positive and proactive decision to run away and hide. In this way, I remain firmly in control of the whole situation.

  And frankly, I think this mini-break may actually have done me some good. My batteries are recharged and I now feel ready to step up to the plate and face the music.

  Thursday January 18th

  I feared the worst as I journeyed to work this morning. Birds flapped menacingly. Belisha beacons flashed in warning. Pavements stuck out their kerbs to trip me.

  Almost immediately I received the summons to Janice’s office. She was sitting behind her desk, straight-backed, tight-lipped and twinkle-eyed. She reminded me of a politburo chief with a busy morning of denouncements to get through.

  She’d instructed IT to hack into my computer and retrieve my report. She paused for dramatic effect and smiled icily. My thoughts turned to Siberian labour camps. I imagined the tilling of frozen soil. Then:

  ‘It’s just what this organisation needs. We need to shake some columns.’

  I left her office through an undefenestrated route, with her invitation to ‘stir-fry some more ideas in her think-wok soon’ echoing disturbingly in my ears.

  Friday January 19th

  The whole street was woken at 7a.m. by the howls of the Man at Number 29 who, in an admirable bid to get his refuse collection back on track, had left his bin bags outside overnight, only for them to be savagely torn to shreds by foxes in the small hours. Utter carnage! Flour bags in flower beds! Houmous tubs in hedges! Dolmio daubed on doorsteps! The bin men declined to take what was left of his bags’ tattered remains, of course, and the Man at Number 29 retreated back inside in despair.

  Moved by his plight, I had it in mind to write a poem of solidarity and post it through his letter box but I became distracted by the sight of The Guardian Bumper Christmas Cryptic Crossword. It had been waiting patiently in the corner of the sitting room for some attention since New Year’s Eve. Three hours later and I filled in the answer to 15 down, having first looked up its meaning in the dictionary:

  VELLEITY (noun): volition in its lowest form; a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.

  Saturday January 20th

  Penguin Awareness

  I’ve been aware of penguins since I was three:

  I think one may have moved in with me.

  The signs are everywhere.

  The smell of saltwater in the air.

  There are moulted feathers on my chair

  Yesterday I found a fish upon the stair.

  But when I turn around there’s no one there,

  for he moves in the shadows, like Tony Soprano;

  I am forever stepping in guano.

  I don’t know why he’s come to live with me.

  There are better places for him to be.

  But when I’ve gone to bed, I can hear the tread

  of his soft heels across the kitchen floor,

  and the opening of the freezer door.

  And I picture him there,

  his head resting on a frozen shelf,

  dreaming sadly of somewhere else,

  thinking about the hand that life has dealt him,

  and I wonder if his heart is melting.

  Sophie reminded me not to be late in dropping Dylan back tonight as Stuart was taking them both to some film premiere or other, and she’d really appreciate it if I could be on time for once. I replied that of course I would, before reminding her that she still had my vinyl copy of Pet Sounds and I’d really appreciate it if she could have it ready for me to collect from her later.

  She handed it over to me wordlessly when I dropped Dylan back. Slouching home, I’d been all set to spend the evening with an old episode of Miss Marple but made the error of taking a quick look at Twitter. Penguin Awareness Day was being celebrated. I had previously been unaware of this. I posted up a poem to commemorate the occasion, drawing down deep into my well of imaginative powers to conjure up feelings of what it must be like to feel lonely and displaced.

  Sunday January 21st

  The RPSCA have contacted me again on Twitter to tell me they’re deeply concerned that a penguin – or indeed any aquatic, flightless bird – is being kept in a household environment. They believe its needs would become too difficult to meet in a human’s domestic dwelling and that it may become depressed. They are threatening to send an inspector out.

  Monday January 22nd

  National Poet Helpline

  Do YOU ever talk

  of nightingales?

  Or whisper

  immortal intimations?

  Chat about melancholy?

  Or Grecian urns?

  If so, you may be

  ode conversation.

  A clatter of the letter box and a thud on the doormat told me that the January issue of Well Versed – The Quarterly Magazine for the Discriminating Poet had arrived. An occasion always greeted with much anticipation and no little excitement on my part for not only does it give me the opportunity to keep up with the latest developments in the poetry world (sample articles in this issue include ‘How to get the most out of your Pindaric Ode’, ‘Troubleshooting Double Dactyls’ and ‘How to Have Fun with Clerihews’) but I always experience a brief frisson of hope that one of my poems might at last be featured within its pages.

  The theme for January’s competition was ‘Wind’ and I had high hopes for my two entries – ‘Breezy Listening’ and ‘Forgive Me Father For I Have Wind’ – but instead, there on page 3 was a photograph of a leering Toby Salt, alongside his winning poem, ‘Theogony and the Ecstasy’:

  A rock for a jail

  and nothing but the wind for company.

  O Aeolian confidante! Dry my salty locks

  and whisper the world into my ear.

  The latest stockmarket news.

  A child strangled. The shaming of a politician.

  And all the snarling of the gutter press.

  The jingle of my jailor’s keys as they bounce upon his thigh.

  But no. These chains. This rock.

  What do you bring exactly? Only betrayal.

  The dread beat of accipitrine wings,

  the daily agonies

  and my ripped-out liver,

  shining at my feet,

  surrounded by rock pools, ruby-red.

  I have now read this poem seven times and I understand it a little less each time.

  Tuesday January 23rd

  William Wordsearch

  I have concluded that the whole notion of making competitions out of poetry merely serves to debase the artform. I’m seriously thinking about cancelling my subscription to Well Versed.

  Wednesday January 24th

  I had forgotten that it’s book group tomorrow!

  After work, I pedalled furiously to the bookshop, swerving suddenly to avoid a collision with a Transit van, in the hope that they had J. G. Ballard’s Crash in stock. They did! While I was there, I bought a few other books: three more Ballard novels; a brief introduction on how to read poetry; A Dream Dictionary to ‘unlock the secrets of your subconscious’; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die; and a self-help guide entitled How To Organise Your Mind So You Can Organise Your Life. Annoyingly, I couldn’t find th
is last book in my bag when I got home. I think I may have left it behind on the counter.

  Crash is 208 pages. I have some speed-reading to do; I just need to be careful I don’t take a page too fast and career into the margins.

  Thursday January 25th

  There was a lively discussion at book group tonight concerning ‘symphorophilia’. This, I learnt, is the sensation of being sexually aroused by disasters or accidents. No one in the group admitted to harbouring such feelings although I did wonder about the man in front of me at the bar, having seen the way he’d looked at the barmaid after she’d dropped his bag of scampi fries on the floor and bent over to pick them up.

  My own contribution to proceedings was slim on account of being exhausted from staying up late to try to finish it (I’d crashed out at 10.30pm having got as far as page 12). I bought an extra bowl of wasabi peas for the table to re-ingratiate myself with the group.

  Friday January 26th

  This is Not the Poem that I Had Hoped to Write

  This is not the poem that I had hoped to write

  when I sat at my desk and the page was white.

  You see, there were other words that I’d had in mind,