Kevin Pocock

I type my password again.

My account is unavailable I’m told.

Down for unscheduled maintenance.

And just like that, this 21st century life is on hold.

Sad as it seems, this is the only thing I do.

So, though I feign interest in the BBC’s stories.

Re-check my emails, from me, from you.

And consider my guitars, forlorn, unloved.

I smell coffee, a scent of progress,

measuring out the lives for some  writers’ nostrils.

But just passing the time here.

And I guess that perhaps there are five pieces of clothing

In the pile on the floor.

I retype my password again.

I notice the second part of the message then, powerless.

‘It should be available again within a few hours.’

But the mess that my room is in can wait by the door.

Near the jewel cases crest fallen from the stereo.

I debate whether to shred those papers.

Sift them slowly – allowing the developers time to finish -

but decide to shift them below me.

And while I wait, I could check my myspace page.

But it’s just a pretender these days.

My glass of water is empty.

My throat scratchy.

No doubt due to the dust that is all about me.

I could do something about that, I suppose.

But my account might be ready, who knows?

I retype my password again.

And Log in.

I have no new notifications.

No new messages. No updates.

And I like nothing sufficiently to comment.

I log out.

Well this is the first Monday Mandible, in which I’ll wax lyrical about whatever happens to be on my mind. Which at the moment is tennis. Wimbledon. Andy Murray causing anguish in the Pocock household by taking off where ‘Go On Tim!’ Henman left us hoping for someone to shout at and project our own hopes and dreams onto. 

 

My word! I mean, I thought it took me a long time to get home after two and a half hours because of a line-side fire at London Bridge, but a four hour or so game of tennis? They must be shattered, I know I bloody well am! Fair play to the gent though – he’s through to the Quarter Finals and a step closer to being the Brit we Brits hoped would once again win Wimbledon…and the Scot he hoped would. It’s not the same thing, but anyway, most people tend not to notice…

 

I am slightly perturbed by one thing however, and that’s my mum’s insistance that ‘that could’ve been you playing at Wimbledon’, soon to be followed by a comment along the lines of ‘You like his [Murray's] girlfriend, don’t you’, after my purely innocent comment that I thought she had a hell of a lot of hair (she does). Two things wrong with that. One, I never seriously played tennis when younger, and two, that might be the most bizarre compliment likely to mean you like someone ever. I can see me trying that one out in Central London. 

 

“Excuse me random lady, you appear to have loads of hair.”

“Oh, my, they say that about Murray’s girlfirend – you must really like me.”

 

No. Exactly. By the by, another golden parental moment was when she randomly said at a happy lady in the crowd (on the TV, may I remind you) ‘Yes alright, Boobs McGraw’… but I suppose you had to be there for that.

 

Anyway, aside from my Mum’s insistance that I could have been Andy Murray, though as my mum, she should realise I could never have been, and the insistence I want his woman, I must admit to feeling a little lost as I do when I watch most sports I enjoy. I really wanted to be a pro sportsman when I was younger. Immensely so. Now it’s rather grating that I probably can’t ever be, but there we go, horses, courses, roads and forks etc.

 

To be honest, I’m just glad that I’ve managed to fill the first Monday Mandible with some words. Oh and that I can go to bed Murray’s through.

 

G’night.

Your photos.

They make me sullen.

 

To see how much fun you’ve had while every day,

I amuse myself with mp3s, book lost on trains

and swaying daydreams as carriages loll.

 

Your profile makes me soften.

 

That you have such an effect on my newly scaffolded frame. 

Weakening the joints, and melting rough ends.

As the same old regrets fill my head and

then pour out both ears.

 

Do you know, they would strip the images from the picture postcard you sent me. 

Attempt to tell me you never enjoyed  yourself  so much 

And made me sullen in envy I could not be with you.

 

When the truth is it’s my own doing.

Green eyes are but the mixture of the bright blue Irises I possess 

And the gold light you beam into them, gleaned from experiences this wisher missed.