It's poetry if I say it is

Today is National Poetry Day in Aotearoa and so, in the long and worthy tradition of scribblers everywhere, I have trawled through a variety of notebooks (and in at least one case, my Facebook posts) to find things that kinda-maybe-sorta could be considered poetry in a flattering light and if you don't poke around too much.

Look, I'm not much of a poet but I'm willing to have a crack and if that's not in the spirit of the day I don't know what is¹.

Please enjoy my humble poetical offerings.

Help me. I've done all the housework but I'm still having an existential crisis

Help me

I've done all the housework but I'm still having an existential crisis

Awhina mai

I've de-pilled all my winter knits, even the ones I don't really wear, but I'm still in an anxiety spiral

Lord, would someone please intervene

I've reorganised the shelves in the pantry and put matching labels on all my dry goods

But I'm still in despair

This is actually a cry for help

I've separated all the lids from their recyclable vessels

And washed and cleaned the number 1 and number 5 lids

And taken them to my local ecohub so they can be remade into something vaguely useful

But I'm still horribly overwhelmed

By the enormity of the world's fucked-upness

dot dot dot

dash

dash

dash

dot dot dot

I've sorted the laundry

Cleaned all the rugs and soft furnishings

With my Bissell carpet and upholstery spot cleaner

I've emptied the crumb tray on the toaster

And cleaned the heat pump filters

And vacuumed the cat

And

There's nothing to be done

But everything to be done

And the least that I can do

Or the best that I can do

Is to

write

this

poem?

Alexander Skarsgård is my imaginary boyfriend

Alexander Skarsgård is my imaginary boyfriend.

He whispers sweet, Swedish-accented nothings in my ear, like, "every man who has ever complained that you were intimidating actually meant that you were a terrifying combination of smart and hot"

and

"I'm just really into thick, Polynesian cyclist thighs"

and

"Would you like the last Tim Tam, my angel?"

Alexander Skarsgård is age-appropriate for me. I am only 17 months older than him

(This poem is not about Leonardo Dicaprio at all but I am exactly 1 month younger than Leo... and a whole girlfriend older than any of his girlfriends)

Alexander Skarsgård often plays opposite women who are 10, 15 or 20 years his junior.

The exception being Nicole Kidman who is 9 years older than he is and played his wife in "Big Little Lies".

Five years later she played his mother in "The Northman".

This is known as "doing a Sally Field" or "being a woman over 40 in Hollywood".

Alexander Skarsgård's middle names are Johan and Hjalmar and his surname, when pronounced correctly, sounds kinda like "ska-gord".

I will be keeping my name. If we marry.

Alexander Skarsgård thinks my dance moves are amazing and that I kick ass at karaoke.

Alexander Skarsgård wants to introduce me to pickled herring.

Alexander Skarsgård once made a sex face during a TV interview while talking about eating tiramisu...

And I think of it often.

Alexander Skarsgård is the perfect imaginary boyfriend -

Tall

Kind

Able to open jars

... And very fucking far away.

Nothing's gonna stop us now except, perhaps, large reptiles

This one isn't really a poem, but it does include some rhyming and is kind of funny so that's why I'm including it.

Last year we went on holiday in Australia and while we were driving somewhere "Nothing's gonna stop us now" by Starship came on the radio. Kiddo, taking this lyric somewhat literally (largely for the purposes of contrarianism) said "I don't think that's right. What about... crocodiles?"

For the rest of the song (and maybe the rest of my life) the chorus turned into "Crocodiles will stop us now".

When I posted about this on Facebook, one of my friends², Nick (a man not unfamiliar with clever wordsmithery), added his own bit of Australian fauna-related lyricism, and then I finished off with another line or two.

So please enjoy "Crocodiles will stop us now". Feel free to sing along if you like.

Not afraid of possums

Wombats aren't the problem

Crocodiles will stop us now

Oh no, marsupials aren't a bother

Spiders fuck each other

But crocodiles will stop us, crocodiles will stop us nowwwwww

I hope you enjoyed this "poetry". There are actual poets doing proper poetry up and down the country today so you could probably get some of that going on, if this hasn't completely put you off.

¹ Surely we're not still requiring poets to waste away from consumption in a Parisian garret?! Think of the carbon miles, for one thing.

² I didn't ask him if I could reproduce his lyric here so I hope he doesn't get annoyed but it's just too good!