Becoming Hubert

As a rule I don’t tend toward violence but Hubert, fat useless fuck that he is, brings out the devil in me so to speak. Every movement he makes is a stain on my existence but he is, at least, regular.

Tomorrow morning at precisely 7.27am in he will shuffle, pause briefly next to the dog food then grease-waddle his way along the aisle. For sin I shall play my designated role as the dutiful shopkeeper and attend to him with smiles and no small courtesy.

That is, of course, if I don’t stay out all night in the rain.

Open Letter To A Mango

My little girl turns 3 on Saturday. I wrote this to her before she was born.

***

Dear Voldemort,

Let me introduce myself. My name is dad, and before we immediately get off on the wrong foot let me just state for the record that:-

1. I am the boss
2. Assuming mum isn’t around and,
3. I have no intention of naming you Voldemort

I just used Voldemort as a placeholder because as yet I have no idea what you will be called. Voldemort is a character in a very popular book and (overlong) film series about a boy wizard called Harry Potter and no one likes to actually call him by his name settling instead for “he who cannot be named”. Which in my mind is close enough to “she who has yet to be named” but sounded a lot funnier before I wrote it down. Just go with it, this is how I am – you’ll get used to it.

The Convergence Of Souls: A Haiku Experiment

Words are not enough.

All this dreaming and for what?

An empty tired heart?

But your words sustain

My heart through darkest hours,

And quicken my skin.

Your skin would grace mine

If our wandering pathways

Could ever converge.