Proud To Be Dumb. Poem by Neil Gray

'You are un-FUCKING-believable,
you know that? '

The morning after
the night before
and I'm sat on the patio
in shorts
and a t-shirt
that's seen better days,
sucking down cold ones
and chain smoking
away a monster
sized hangover.

It's as hot as hell
but in the room
behind me
I have the distinct
impression a
new ice-age
maybe dawning.

'All you had to do
was behave yourself.
That's all I asked.
Come to the reading,
then the party after.
Stay away from the booze
and meet some other poet's.
People who could help
make you a better writer
by sharing their
wisdom with you'

I close my eyes
behind my sun-glasses,
stretch out every
tired muscle
and crick my neck
before deciding
to stay good
and loaded
for at least the next
24 hours.

'But no, not you.
You miss the reading
and show up
to the party
stoned out of your mind,
4 hours late.
I was making
excuse's for you for
4 FUCKING hours.
Do you know how stupid
I felt when you fell
through the door?
DO YOU? '

A gentle breeze picks up
and rifle's through
the daily news
laid on the table beside me.

Looking into my cooler
I find I'm
down to one can
and suddenly realise
I need to get into the kitchen
for a refill
but that's where she is.

As are the large knife's.

I think I'll wait.

'And then what do you fucking do?
You proceed to insult everyone there.
Calling them pretentious
assholes all because they
decided to hold
another reading.
They were doing it
for your benefit.
But were you grateful,
oh no not you.'

I wondered if she
was just playing stupid.

Wasn't it obvious that
I'd missed the first one
for a reason?

Nothing bores
me more than sitting in a room
full of 'artist's'
passionatly re-telling
how their children
we're spat out into the World
or how a falling
leaf they had seen that morning
had made them weep.

'And then,
to cap it all,
when David had
read you his Epic,
the piece he's spent 2 years
working on,
you said that the reason
it was so long
was because his
dick was so small.'

I smiled to myself
remembering the look
on his face.

It was as if
he'd found me
in bed with his
grand-mother.

'I don't understand you?
Why do you have
to behave that way?
All they wanted to do
was help you.
Make you part
of their group.
But you spat
it back in their
face's'

'Baby' I said
'they didn't want to help me.
They wanted to sit
around and pat themselves
on the back.
They wanted me too see
how much more intellectual
than normal people they were
and how they suffer
for their art.
How their sensitive
and misunderstood
and how the
'common man'
just dosen't seem to get it.
Well baby,
I get it
and I'm the most
common man of all.
Their a bunch
of trumped up ego-maniac's
who wouldn't know
real life if it
walked straight up
to them
and kicked them square
in the balls
and if you can't see that
then you're no
fucking better
than they are
and I really
don't need you
around
anymore.'

After she'd left
I looked up poet
in the dictionary.

'One possessing high powers
of imagination'

Opening a fresh one
straight from the fridge
I reasoned
if that was the case

then
I was proud
to be
dumb.