Millennials' Picnic

‘Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all you could be missing out on the joke of the century,’ Dame Edna Everage

If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise;

you’ll catch the strains of Fall Out Boy midst the closely-knitted pines.

They planned their route on Google Maps, brought camembert and wine:

for that’s the way millennials have their picnic.

Twenty-something dilettantes

scribbling free verse lines of anguish in their moleskin books;

don’t enjoy being young and tortured, but we rock that look.

We exaggerate a tad,

think life’s never been this bad.

We’re just dreamers life’s abraded ‘til we’re cynical.

Now we’re choking on uncertainty and laughed at from above,

they all say we’re spoilt idealists like this world is not for us.

If you go down to the woods today, you’ll hardly believe your eyes;

see hipsters frown at phone screens ‘til they’ve got that filter right.

Why immerse yourself in nature if it doesn’t get you ‘likes’?

For that’s the way millennials have their picnic.

Echo chamber politics;

Corbyn is our new Messiah and we’ll follow him;

blocking Tory scum on Facebook and we’re loving it.

Yet I have this subtle hope

(it’s naïve, by God I know):

one day we’ll be in the driver’s seat and change it all.

Perhaps we’ll cling on to our passions and we’ll shout until things change,

screw the tone police and thought pieces that say we’re all insane.

So although we’re quite pretentious and in love with silly fads,

and we’re guilty of self-righteousness and glamourize being sad,

we can all be daft together; in shared folly find a home:

if you go down to the woods today, you’d better not go alone.

Photograph: Ms Hazza Haugvik

Eurydice & Orpheus

I

Eurydice and Orpheus

are seated at the bar,

hands nested in each other’s palms,

and pupils knit like yarn.

Their lips are restless, wandering,

to soak the other’s cheek,

but disapproving glances force

them teasingly to leave.

She’d love to fuck him endlessly,

but it’s a weekday and it’s late.

They pull apart unwilling,

as his stiffy starts to chafe.

The morning after Orpheus

confides to his guitar.

He charts the agonies of love—

the trials of his poor heart.

He tries to frame Eurydice

in bland acoustic pop,

and clings to clichés carelessly.

He frets. Then sighs. Then stops.

The trouble is he cannot start

to praise her peerless mind,

when all his inspiration is

for wand’ring eyes to find;

and though the marriage of true minds

was always his ideal,

a bodiless and senseless love

is difficult to feel.

II

The next day brought a dinner date

and promised true romance.

They’d booked a table, called a cab—

not leaving things to chance.

The waiters hurried to their side.

The wine was flowing fast.

Their fellow diners grimaced at

Eurydice’s violent laugh.

Three courses later Orpheus

claims he must foot the bill.

They stumble out the restaurant

and stagger up the hill.

The bedroom beckons, Orpheus

swiftly fumbles at her clothes.

He grinds on her mechanically.

She tries to fake a moan.

When he comes she thinks, ‘thank God that’s done!’

and says she must go home.

It seems she’s drunker than she thought,

as she struggles with her clothes.

The morning after Orpheus

arises with a groan,

surprised to hear the troubled tones

of Jason on the phone.

A deafly silence clouds his ears.

His insides sink like lead.

‘I don’t know how to say this, mate,

Eurydice is dead.’

III

In the hours after Orpheus

is madly writing songs.

He tries to capture his despair,

served up three minutes long.

The neighbours shudder at the sound

of his caterwauling wail,

as sobbing for his sweetheart’s death,

he dreams of album sales.

The funeral comes and Orpheus

sings his love an epitaph.

The mourners grimly clench their teeth

and struggle not to laugh,

aside from someone at the back—

a woman in a veil.

She giggles softly to herself

at her boyfriend’s deafening wail.

Eurydice, see, faked her death—

life’s too short for bad sex.

He only loved her carnally,

but was a bloody bore in bed.

Besides, his songs were pretty shit—

he could hardly hit a note.

So she softly feels the purple marks

of Jason on her throat.

And Orpheus, that ghastly man,

was soon in love again.

Persephone craved his hellish shriek—

you can’t account for taste.

Party Pooper

‘But I have that within which passeth show;

These but the trappings and the suits of woe’

-Hamlet, Act 1, Scene II

Excuse my disinterest

But I struggle to see

What swell of occasion

Could overtop me;

What drift of disinterest

Could rally my speech

From this sullen aloofness,

My trappings of grief.

Forgive my disinterest

But who gives a toss

If it’s so-and-so’s birthday

Or our dinner is ‘posh’?

Four years with your girlfriend

Is all well and good,

But I don’t give a damn

Unless I’m understood.

So I’ll swim in my silence

Brush small talk aside,

And frown and feel hollow

Like somebody died.

If you won’t catch my moods

Then I’m out of your reach.

Though you offer a lifeboat

I'll stick to the sea.

The Parable of the Talents

'England is mine, and it owes me a living,'

-The Smiths

Joe totted up his net worth on

A dog-eared restaurant napkin.

His date was twenty minutes late

And he was hardly happy.

Joe totted up what he could give

To a vast indifferent world.

To woo uncaring multitudes

He totted up his worth.

And writing on the napkin’s right

In a cramped and nervous scrawl:

His virtues, talents, modest skills.

On the left his faults and flaws.

He started with the positive;

The things that he could do;

Like mediocre portraiture.

He used to play the flute.

But he quit karate needlessly

In a fit of childish rage.

The novel he was born to write

Never stretched beyond a page.

His French: no more than a bald Bonjour.

His verse was pretty bad.

He felt like the man who must multiply gold

But instead hid his charge in the sand.

His heart kept time in a sickly thump.

The sweat sprang from his skin

And left damp marks on the feeble start

Of his feeble offering.

He crunched the list in his clammy hand.

‘This isn’t all of me!’

‘But,’ said the absent place of his absent date,

‘This is all that I can see.’

Coffee

‘Maybe you should just drink a lot less coffee

And never ever watch the Ten O’Clock News’ –Regina Spektor

Leaning like italics;

Heading God knows where.

A fizzling core demanding more

And crumpling with its care.

A sizzling shiver in my hands

And thighs like fireworks.

These limbs are spitting sparklers

So you best be wearing gloves.

Now I'm composed of dominoes;

Disaster’s in my lines.

My structural integrity

Could snap at any time.

And with one push I’d feel the rush

Of swift impending doom.

Just one more breath and little death,

Emerging something new.

Another sip and I am filled

With all that I could be;

Like love without the nasty bits.

All possibilities

Drift down like sparks in autumn parks

When the rocket’s had its day.

It kills me with its climax

As the caffeine melts away.

Boyhood

It started with substandard films

And Hollywood explosions.

Manhattan burned, we faced our doom

From comets, drones or Martians.

Guy Fawkes demands an audience

When he gives himself to flames.

And violence is a boy’s best friend

In bloody playground games.

When British Bulldogs led the chase

That scrapes the skin from knees.

When infant fists stroked supple skin

It felt like a release.

When we learnt about the birds and bees

The teacher looked so serious.

It terrified my childhood friend

Who asked if boys have periods.

When my crush whined grass was in her bra

I scrunched up summer leaves.

When she started dating my best friend

Milk teeth made chapped lips bleed.

Perhaps the joy when tissues burn

Wasn't worth the wasted dust.

And perhaps the half price shoot-‘em-ups

Were never right for us.

Still, flowers once were shattered seeds

And fractured eggs makes birds.

And silence must be broken with

Artillery of words.

What harm was there is throwing stones

At Spot, the neighbour’s cat?

And insects feel no pain when scorched

With a magnifying glass.

So you will feel no hurt when I

Visit your lips too roughly.

And when I step across that line

You’ll damn well cross it with me.

Lloyd's Ballad

Lloyd syphoned off adrenaline

(Stale caffeine concoction)

And poured it into tea stained mugs

As urine coloured bourbon.

A face filled with anarchic glee:

George deftly chugging vod.

Tequila solemnly prepared

The body and the blood.

By this time Emily was pissed;

Videos were taken.

The wall propped her up grudgingly

Until it too lost patience.

A merry band (sans Emily)

Descended on the town.

They hugged and skipped and talked too loud

Feet pummelling the ground.

Inside the club the air was dense.;

The bar queue was ungodly.

The crowd was like a rolling tide

Endless waves of bodies.

Lloyd let the bass roar through his shoes.

He swayed with his eyes closed.

George leant and bellowed in his ear

Whilst treading on his toes.

Lloyd lost the others by the gents.

He peered into the throng.

And stared at strangers in the crowd

Who looked like they belonged.

The couples touched more than Lloyd did.

The lads were closer friends.

He cursed his dull and dreary life

And swore to make amends.

Outside the cold air bit his nose:

The cartilage carnivore!

He’d left his friends and sobered up.

He’d realised he’s a bore.

He dreaded the long anecdotes

They’d dwell on the next day

‘Cus none of them would feature him.

He trudged his lonely way.

Miscellaneous Sponge

Guilty indulgence after lunch:

A noxious miscellaneous sponge.

Not carrot cake or chocolate fudge

Just lukewarm custard, drifting sludge.

The flavour was a little bland

But to dismiss it out of hand

Was to ignore its easy charm:

Simplicity that could disarm.

Although cupcakes do catch the eye

The stomach’s still unsatisfied.

First bite of brownie is divine

Yet fill the fork a second time

And throat is clogged with chocolate gunge

So choose the miscellaneous sponge!

Submerged like coral on custard seas,

The humble sponge spoke out to me:

“Remember me when I am gone

And languish in the unknown throng

Of undistinguished, dull desserts

That were not best and were not first!”

The sanctimonious sponge was done.

The course of its short life was run.

One final spoonful did the business.

I felt remorse, and begged forgiveness.

Your brief life did not count for much;

You never seemed to be enough.

Surrounded by less boring friends;

No epitaph will mark your end.

You were not great, but you were good;

You lived just like a human should.

Most blessed of the cakes we munch;

God bless you, miscellaneous sponge!