first you learn how to brawl with your head, only at the last resort do the hands enter the arithmetic picture: i'm shipping up to boston, by the dropkick murphys - or at least that's what i get from the song.

and then you write something decent,
and you know it's decent,
   you mastered an observational tool -
but then the people know oh so
little - and always settle for the easy
way to pass the time, with a cute "chihuahua"
of a poem, and some dumb stereotype
of a blond; and that's the major source
of a downer... known the **** "chihuahuas"
from the "rottweilers";
i sometimes imagine a poem that
deserves your teeth to be sharpened like
a pygmy, or those zappo zap zigzags;
can't help it.
  but when i know that i've exhausted
a day, i return to the passionate heart
of the kitchen -
on today's menu?
        mmm... moroccan tagine...
with a cumin paprika onion parsley chilli
garlic ginger & turmeric infused couscous...
and on the side a halloumi (grilled) salad:
a bunch of mixed leaves, cherry tomatoes
courgette, garlic infused olive oil...
hey presto!
      a feast to remember, and enough spare
for my dad to take to work for lunch...
with mum visiting her parents for a month
it's becoming very much
   *steptoe & son - strange how the atmosphere
changes between men when there's
no women around...
         i do the cooking & the cleaning:
and pretty much all of the drinking -
which brings me to this idea of gender dysphoria...
there are too many men in non-masculine
jobs that debunk writing verse or
cooking at being very much masculine affairs...
i can't say i've eaten food cooked by a man
that wasn't satisfying...
   then again, i've eaten overcooked spaghetti
and undercooked potatoes cooked by a woman...
and i've read the more satisfying verse
by men, rather than women...
    to an extent, of course: there will always
be exceptions...
    but look at it from the ancient perspective,
poor sappho, among virgil, horace, homer
ovid...
          that's what i mean about
my "gender dysphoria"...
                     believe me when i say that the most
masculine men who work the trades
rarely complain about male poets -
or male chefs -
     after all, some poor sod will have to peel
the potatoes in the army...
there are no dinner ladies in the army -
    feed the cohort the right broth and they'll
follow you like they might follow a caesar;
just like my father, when i started growing
a beard once i passed 25 (when white guys
actually begin to get proper ****** hair),
i asked him if he would too...
     and he did...
       now i look like a young santa claus,
                       and he, as a shadow at 5p.m.