*tents fingers*

(based on suggestions from @pinknantucket, @facelikethunder, @ernmalleyscat, @timsterne and @matchtrick)

Had that nightmare again. Yeah, the one where I’m Hungry Joe, which is rather appropriate, and I wake up to find Tolly on my face. Nothing like a cat faceplant to start the day, hey?

Yeah, so it’s 4am and I’m up, obviously. So I get my tea from the kitchen, in the dark. There’s always a freakin toy in the corridor I’ve forgotten to pack up pick up – this morning it was a koala, which is roundabout as patriotic as we get in this house. Anyway, he seems relatively ok about being molested by my feet in the dark.

There’s no Skinny milk, of course, so I get the arse-extender milk instead. It’s always a bit like drinking curdled flesh, full cream milk I reckon. Blah. Need for tea wins obviously though.

Do you ever wake up and feel like there’s already no time left in the day? Even when it’s 4am? I feel like there’s just no time, sometimes. It’s not like I could get up much earlier or go to bed much later is it – at some point my days would just end up meeting in the middle. And then I think I’d pretty much explode.

So I sit down and look at last night’s notes, and my mind goes blank, basically. It’s all a bit #firstworldproblems, hey. Is there a hashtag version of air quotes? I’ve tried to invent one but it looks a bit too much like I’m conducting a really short symphony. Maybe some kind of Mr Burns finger-tenting with a bit of overlap could work? *tents fingers with a bit of overlap* You’d have to just tent four of them though, for a hashtag. Nah. Don’t think I can send that one to the patent office just yet.

So I’ve read a bit about anti-poetry this morning, and I don’t think I believe it, actually. I dunno, if poetry didn’t hold some kind of mystical power, I think I’d have a lot less reason to get up in the morning. I reckon. You know, I’ve read my DeLillo, I still reckon words can turn out to be real.

Shall I show off and quote Nicanor Parra? He’s an anti-poet, bit of an antsy-poet, by the look of him. Anyway, after recitations of his antsy-poetry he’d always say me retracto de todo lo dicho. Means I take back everything I’ve said. Think I might stick with A la peanut butter sandwiches, actually.

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Today's poem is based on suggestions from five peeps:

• @pinknantucket: "That made me think of Huple’s cat (from Catch 22). Any chance he might appear in tomorrow's poem?"
• @facelikethunder: "Anti-poetry. (I don't know if this is a thing but thought you might like a conceptual challenge.)"
• @timsterne: "my mind goes blank" (not technically a suggestion but I took it anyway.)
• @matchtrick: " *tents fingers* " (also not technically a suggestions. I am a thief.)
• @ernmalleyscat: "koala in a corridor"

Today's poem is my first experiment in anti-poetry (which is a thing, apparently). Anti-poets "sought to reject the belief that verse holds any mystical power. The poems have been described as prose-like, irreverent, and illuminating the problems of human existence." Anti-poetry is often written like common speech, so I have tried to write today's poem as close to my own speech patterns as I can, which is really hard, and has made me appreciate the words I overuse in my everyday speech (hey, basically, actually, so, I reckon, kind of). I've read it out loud over and over, and I think it sounds like something I'd say (rather than write). Those of you who've heard me talk, you think?

Nicanor Parra is a Chilean mathematician and anti-poet, and after his readings he would cry "Me retracto de todo lo dicho" which translates as "I take back everything I said".

Bugger that. I stand by everything I've said.