Three Songs from the South Bank
by Damon Moore
1.
After a number of years,
You notice the constraint.
‘You must hate yourself,’ they say.
So I asked for a prescription
Curing a person of self-hate.
The doctor was a he.
He took a long look. He reached
For his pad. Immobilized,
He leaned as if on the brink
Of reaching for a bottle.
Avoiding an anodyne
‘Look, it’s a vice thinking people hate you’
He suggested,
Looking every bit like a real doctor,
Frank O’ Hara.
2.
Early experience
Preaches poetry is drunk.
Enjoyed. Gone.
Put back in its pram.
But the doctor
Was a soulful one.
‘Either,’ he said
‘Helped, you stay helped or
Regress to helpless again.
So throw that poem in...’
Added, ‘Do everything you can.’
3.
These days, I’m careful
Taking medication.
I symbolise hateful people
With a clay green donkey
Stood on my shelf at home
In height, a centimetre and a bit.
Spectators, with a lot on their plate,
Increasingly I appreciate
Who never required poetry this life-long
Nor came for that.
Here just for the fun.
For poetry to be drunk.
Enjoyed. Gone.
The discredit of self-hate,
What myself, I can’t forgive
They enthusiastically can,
A man with a microphone.
