When I spied
on my grandfather
watching porn
in the basement,
his buttocks twisting
and turning,
his hip rising and falling
like an Irish lilt
while his hand drifted
everywhere —
his thighs, his belly,
his nipples and his cock,
I developed an obsession
for obscure poetry.
I don’t know how the act
of my grandfather
hyperventilating
created in me
a love for esoteric
poesy riddled with allusions,
quotes and strange symbolism,
but it did,
and I didn’t realise how severe
my addiction was until
I read a poem on the blogging
platform Blogstar by an
anonymous poet.
The poem’s strange cadence
and lines like guarding the gates
to anaphylactic towers/
they stand
in circles/ saying,
Battre le fer pendant
qu’il est chaud/
while we grow younger/
like Benjamin Buttons/
fed the livers of muttons
captivated me so much that
I read it 15 times.
In a year’s time, I’d read it 5000
times and knew it by heart.
Every time I read it again or
recollected it, I thought of
my grandfather in the throes
of passion, bobbing about,
drooling, holding the seat of the
cushioned chair and squealing,
and I jumped up and down,
howled, groaned, got on all fours,
lifted my arse, farted, and rubbed my
face like a bunny with the itches.
It aroused me in a pre-sexual
way (that’s the only way I can
describe it). I got no erection,
but I was in a trance, in heat like
a mongrel salivating and chasing
a car, thinking it’s a bigger
female dog with a big backside.
The father clock ticks while
they await the fight between
the past and the present/
the romantic
and the modern/
La plus belle des
ruses du diable
est de vous persuader
qu’il n’existe pas.
Awoo! Fuck, fuck,
fuck, I couldn’t take it!
The novel without
an e/ the Knight
of Infinite Resignation/
the ogres watch
the trembling
cupid/
chained by idealism.
Hoo! Haaa!
Damn! Fuck! Shit!
Mercy! Mercy!
I grabbed my crotch like
Emiliano Martinez and made
an obscene gesture.
I’ve now read
the poem 100000
times, and it’s
all I can think of.
I’ve stopped
eating regularly,
piss on my bed
and crap on the floor.
Today they admitted
me to an institution,
but a friend visited me,
and I paid him
to read the poem aloud
again and again.
They’ve given me
a cocktail of drugs
but I can’t stop!
I backhand the nurse,
jump on the bed,
fight off the doctors
and shout, “Des Teufels
liebstes Möbelstück
ist die lange Bank;
the book of Enoch,
the Watchers fell,
but they’ll
return; aw-awoo!”
Photo by Ahmed M Elpahwee on Unsplash
Ordinary Person 
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