Lakey Comess


NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM/HER

Just gone, discontinued, barely paid for it.

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Those days got Remember, the whole anthology,
right, wrong, indifferent, good. This only by the way.

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Altogether different, contemporary,
look up volume, look back on it all.

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He/she's been very helpful,
think-a-lot-know-how.

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Mannered, avoids saying anything right through.

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You know something strikes me, people vanish, become arsonists,
something-in-lingerie, someone called oh-what's-in-a-name he/she, the best.

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Abandoned it all waiting to be king/queen. Got her/his
wish now, nothing to do with anyone else, stands aloof.

You know the type, kiss-my-ass, I am superior.
Meet him/her in the street she/he will tell you,

I knew William Shakespeare, the William Shakespeare.
Affected, snooty-dragged-up-in-the-city.

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Hamlet & Guildenstern…

(Actually I never liked Guildenstern's attitude. I mean a guy asks you,
no, begs you to play his recorder, you just do it. Don't pen it, do it.)

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Too doctrinaire, really wasn't anyone else, though,
unless you've got names you want me to confess, in the chronological sense.

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Met, thought, "Goodness, there's something to him/her."

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Pure imitation, really, always been different from most.
Left off fantasy, got married instead (so enterprising).

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People get the fundamentally mistaken impression,
oh, isn't she/he doesn't he/she work as a librarian?

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She/he wasn't a part of the time. He/she was over his/her head,
she/he got taken up (got dropped), lacking in diffuse experience.

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Didn't want to deal with rare items promising punishment.

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Remember comes out of books, prepared. Add background,
throw weight around, know what I mean?

Invented another life, lives on some other plane,
more middle-of-the-night-give-it-to-me.

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Haven't an idea between them, just don't know anything.

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Always interesting, hit-or-miss-that-hasn't-happened.
Nevertheless, a long story, not a bad person and so on.

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Didn't pick right/wrong, was no more than a no/talent,
warmed-over, half-baked mind writing perfect bilge.

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Praise you like, almost as though you were
wasting your time. This is the same isn't it?

Satisfactory-but-better-than-prose.

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They used to get angry, ask questions, thousands of questions.

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She/he of course never recognizes answers
even if they float in his/her coffee. He/she
does belief, survives, often falls. Doesn't mean
anything at all, avoids linguistic games, doesn't like
stunning voices going on in her/his own head.

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Wouldn't touch cerebration with a barge pole,
responds in a you-respond-and-I-don't way, mucks about.

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Always denied reputation, made-up stories,
quite untrue, reflects tastes of her/his time.

Rhyme, blank,
                ten minute swank,
semi-retired blues.

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Anguish, creeps into consternation, languishes.
Perfectly normal inclinations condemned to "free verse."

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Kind of give-up-conspiracy. Go on, pay-them-off,
take anything, dreams, dictionaries, disturbing terms.

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Happens-to-suit-anything-going, thinks he/she is
dancing on like a well-got-up, ambitious weed.

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Up-against-life, why-are-they-here obscurity,
(all right, cynicism), avant garde, write-it-off, delicately
                engaged judgment.

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Influenced, sort of, what she/he became,
impractical, older man/woman, all that.

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Cut her/himself off, sounds utterly un/pleasant.

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Rarely surfaced, disappeared, unable to decide.

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Backwards, forwards,
didn't make any difference.

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Tough, ironic,
role-model-ambitions,
metrical shorthand,
annoying neutrality,
colorless pretentions,

profound,
anything goes.

Whatever you please,
a real mouth full.

Lakey Comess, born U S A in 1948, has lived in Israel, South Africa and the Orkney Islands in Scotland and now lives in Lanarkshire. She has contributed to Versal, Big Bridge, Gulf Stream, Milk, Hutt, Otoliths, Hamilton Stone Review, Mad Hatters' Review blog, On Barcelona blog and other publications, also as Lakey Teasdale.
 
 
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