Bliss

Pressed between the corduroy calves of Man sniffling through a box of LP’s,
A golden labrador.
Dope eyed, old and creamy he lies out the Saturday boot sale
strumming ears tickled by chords of grass
while a sticky kid’s paw pats him
cautiously rifling his suede boned nose and liquorice lips.
Man thumbs past Jim Reeves and Classics for Pleasure a Readers Digest box set of
WWII songs, truffling for rare jazz or Jap white labels.

Between the boxes swanking past
a flat faced mutt locked against buttoned leggings thin straps and orange ankles.
He snaps his displeasure at the ‘lab’ who sniffs on
caressed by the corduroy shuffling Man
‘Piss off’ the Lab mouthes safely.

He loves this just still summer heat.
The trickle of greasy sneakers, suedes and wet trainers, sandals, flip-flops
Grubby farts and mouth spills, nappy babies with milky mums and nylon grans,
Cheap stale bags with snotty tissues and chocolate
and turn-ups with cheesy crisp crumbs.

He loves man loves him loves here best. He loves this all.

Soon the best bit.
Bag of disks, deal done, they trot to bacon breakfast and queue at the cabin
Flat face trussed-under-heel to the orange ankles legging’s man’s friend
Shorts bare brick dust calves course with Mr Muscle.
“Prat.”
Flat face whines and drools
“Prat.”
Tea spoons planted in dish water brown stained
Seeped in sugar a sausage in bread
All for him.
Sucked down in a second.
Bliss.

CANCER = CANCEL – oh NO NO NO!

Our Firework night party was my first full-on social excursion. Despite me being annoyingly neurotic about shaking hands, kissing, licking, sucking, or sharing body fluids and thus coming into contact with bugs and triggering a full on medical emergency, it went ahead as normal. With our 2 boys, 1 girlfriend, 2 sisters of girlfriend, 3 friends of boys, 2 friends of ours, our neighbour, her daughter + her tiny daughter, two local farmers and Guy, this was our lowest turn out ever. We normally host an unwieldily large hodge-podge of friends, mixed with heavy rain, bollock freezing cold, too much donated food, effort, conviviality, unthreatening conversation (yuk yuk yuk), ‘garden’ (euphemism for crap, fizzle-out, safe, non-bangy, non-Chinese) fireworks. One year I had to go home for a lie down, green-diced-carrot-faced before the bonfire was even lit. Normally I end up lying in a wheelbarrow, cold, wet, burnt and dripping in sausage fat, while friends wonder why they bothered to come and prepare their excuses for next year. This year had to be at a different scale cos of me and my contact neurosis but we did not want to dump it all together and imply that CANCER = CANCEL – oh NO NO NO! I kept my distance, fended off any attempt at an embrace with a firm left hook, stayed out of the barow and off the mulled emetic but loved it!

Bored with god

Now that my Cancer has become routine, I am used to it, the supposed shock has subsided, I find myself with a somewhat purposeless blog title. Cancerwithoutgod was a furious reaction to the anticipated torrent of godly nonsense I imagined might flow my way. Either my posts have been sufficient to act as a dam or more likely, and I say this with some disappointment, my courageous ‘battle with believers’ was more of a fond ambition than a reality. It seems that most people, or at least the lovely worried family and friends that subscribe to the blog, aren’t that bothered about taking on the big metaphysical issues but content themselves with the knowledge that ‘we know that he’s alright cos he’s wittering on about stuff like God.’ This wasn’t the plan. I was hoping for something more heroic and controversial. My visitors have never amounted to more than 12 per day. None of them the angry fundamentalists I hoped for. A few sellers of inflated willy’s but nothing to get my teeth into. That’s just fine because without anyone taking me on I find myself cooling down to a frozen certainty that God is dead for sure, he never lived, the concept is irrelevant, potentially destructive and actually not half as interesting as ‘Peaky Blinders Series 2.’ – which is truly brilliant. In fact if I was gay I would really fancy the leading actor, even straight I am quite tempted – he is amazingly charismatic and he makes the Brummy accent incredibly sexy – Best thing on TV for yonks. But I digress – Maybe it was the steroids that triggered my energetic outbursts but I find myself really bored by God. If anyone has a solution for this I would be grateful as I was enjoying feeling so feisty. Either that or I am going to have to change the title of this blog.