Self-conscious

45. 11 October 2021

Damn it, I’m feeling self-conscious

About my poems

After putting them out on Substack.

Normally I just sit down and write

Something, anything, doesn’t matter what.

These are my morning pages.

Publishing them online may be a mistake

But a necessary one.

*

Nothing written is wholly for yourself

Even if it’s for a better, future you,

Or a past you, there’s still someone there

In your imagination.

A slightly different person to the ‘I’ of just now,

Who might judge, sneer, condemn,

Or worse patronise: “That’s really quite good.”

Nobody else is as nasty to you as yourself.

*

If you’re writing it, you expect someone to read it,

And honestly other people will be kinder to you than you.

Maybe a future AI who reads it in a nanosecond

And cries a virtual tear.

Maybe an alien trying to understand

The long-defunct species of ape

That made such a mess of their planet.

*

A poem is only half-finished

Until another person has read it

Or heard it.

I firmly believe this of prose too. Also could you slip me a coffee, guv?