I’m listening to Creep by Radiohead
for the umpteenth time
and I get it. I just do. I am a damn creep,
a shadowy, sinister madman/boogeyman/
sad man who emerged from murky
pools of oblivion, spammed FB feeds
with his bleak, obscure poetry that
centred on what he deemed ‘esoteric
truths’ but were really asinine
ramblings. Who do you think you
are? I’d scream, but no one listened.
Who am I? I’d whisper at the virtual,
altar of confession where women talked
about men ogling, and anxiety that
sounded like a metronome on speed.
I’d say I’m an odd-time signature, a
5/4, never fitting in, but making enough
of an impact to make them remember
me, but who did? No one, I tell you.
Nobody fucking did. Back then I’d
lash out at the ‘conformist pigs with
their devotion to cliques and hierarchies,
staring at the symbols on the wall and
refusing to listen to the man who’d seen
the light,’ but fuck me! Wasn’t I a pretentious
little dope, spouting half-baked knowledge
and making it seem like a recherché philosophy?
Sheesh, I was such an ignoramus!
A shambling muttonhead who should
have dunked his head in a bowl of soup.
Anyhow, no one can rework things
and make it all look like I was a misguided
genius, because they’ve all seen through
me. They’ve seen enough to know that
I was an idiot who thought he was
brilliant. Damn, where’s that bowl of
soup when you need it? So, why am I writing
this now? Do the last vestiges of pride
compel me to prattle on about a past
that my mind wants to forget?
Is it some false sense of humility,
kind of like a feigned naïveté
that feeds the ego
while appearing innocent?
I don’t know, but I think we’ve reached
the end of this long poem.
I think I don’t care anymore whether
I’m a forgotten book in the corner
of the attic, or the prized possession
of someone who cares but refuses to
admit it, or the laughing stock.
I don’t care if I’m free or hogtied,
if I’m running a marathon while
the crowd cheers me on, or if
I’m only playing a game in which I’m running,
imagining the people in the stands.
Innocence fades, love vanishes
and then ennui sets in, and finally
in the languor of a humid night,
apathy, or better yet, a sense of non-being,
a going with the flow, I don’t care, now pass
me the damn froyo, and even if I’m sad
I won’t confront it, and if I’m mad, fuck it,
nonchalance, an end to nostalgia, and
a grasping of the eternal present.
Ordinary Person 
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