The new lodger is a talker...

THE NEW LODGER IS A TALKER...

The new lodger is the kind of man who tells you what kind of man he is.

The new lodger has stories that go on forever, yet still lack detail.

The new lodger will tell you all about his shopping – every item. And if he sees you in Tesco, he'll show them all to you too...

The new lodger often lies in wait beside kettles. He's lonely, and surely everyone needs tea.


The new lodger reads The Daily Mail, but sometimes gets confused and accidentally picks up a Daily Express, tells you all about the mistake, before realising, no, it's The Daily Mail.

The new lodger doesn't know how kids like that sprang from him...

The new lodger once spent an hour in a phonebox trying to get through to call centres. If someone had answered him he might have been there all day.

The new lodger was convinced that I had a kettle in my room...


If the new lodger asks a question, don't interrupt. He wants to tell you the answer.


The new lodger thinks every man knows what women are like...

He is a divorced father of three, but clearly misses the captive audience.


Now the new lodger has left: There were threats, he said.

Oh, I said, in genuine shock, that his friend, or anyone else, had ever got a word in.

Morning Routine

MORNING ROUTINE

I'll get up... I can't get up.

No, of course I can get up. But I can't.

I'll get up then, since nothing could be easier... Except not getting up.

Well, now? Shall I?

No, I can't. And yet nothing is stopping me. Or more precisely, Yes, I can, but nothing is stopping me. Weighing me down. Pinning me to the bed.

Then it is settled. I shall lie here, lie beneath the nothing, worry about the nothing, all this nothing that daily pins me to the bed. It seems important somehow. And besides, have you never seen a tiger? A hungry tiger lying in wait, coiled like a spring? How much more dangerous the five hundred-coiled mattress beneath just waiting to pounce?

I shall play dead, then....

Yes, I shall play dead.

And should you see me, this is what I shall say, I'm playing dead. And you'll tell me I'm worrying about nothing, and I'll tell you, Yes. Then, in a whisper: Now go away. And get the tranquiliser gun. Before it suspects...

Getting By

GETTING BY

Bennie died for the fifth time in as many years last week...

Steve takes animals to the sea and leaves them there. He thinks it's nicer by the waves.

Beth regularly wins Employee of the Month at a small firm she runs from her back bedroom... but it is expanding now and she lives in fear of hiring an assistant who will almost certainly be better.

Nearly 86 years ago Jim quit eating, yet still he relapses three square times a day. He gets depressed, he says, and can't help it; he thought failure would no longer be an issue so late in life. It's a vicious circle... it's a vicious circle is life, he says. And stares longingly at some pickle and a pork pie.

From her scalp each morning Sorcha plucks a single long hair to keep as a souvenir of the day ahead, before running to the bathroom to dye all that remain. One way or another she will have a tangled and colourful past.

Myself, I have a mid-life crisis every other fortnight and at this rate will soon be immortal.

We all get by somehow, I guess. And even writing prose poems doesn't seem so far-fetched, some days.