Category: Textual Encounters

Hitting The Sauce

My niece is thirty this November. I recently got in touch with her after not being in contact for two years. It’s the longest time we’ve ever gone without contact, simply because life got in the way. We would always see each other quite regularly and I realised just how much I’d missed her.

We wrote this little ditty together back in our darker days, when life was more challenging than it is now. There was a time when we both needed a drink to get through the hell that was our life. I hope I’m not being over dramatic here (and they say the past always looks sweeter in hindsight).

Well, anyway, this is what we wrote together. Although, I’m fairly certain she wrote most of it. She’s a very talented lady. To Kerry. Let’s try not to let life get in the way again. It’s far too short.

Hitting The Sauce

Lager, cider, wine and port,

Rum, brandy, vodka quart.

Gin, ale, alcopops,

Baileys, Barcadi, tequila shots.

 

Bucks fizz, snow balls, Aussie whites,

Gettin’ blind on all the nights.

Champagne, absinthe, lotsa sherry.

The stuff to down when you wanna get merry.

 

Chorus:

Let’s get loaded.

Let’s get pissed,

Let’s get drunk,

On Vodka Twists.

 

Pernod, Bourbon and JD,

Lots of drinkin’ for you & me.

Southern comfort, bitter, stout,

I wanna be a lager lout.

 

Tia-Maria, Guinness, mild,

Let’s get smashed, let’s get wild.

Cointreau, whiskey, advocaat,

Down the chute, you won’t get far.

 

Chorus:

Let’s get loaded.

Let’s get pissed,

Let’s get drunk,

On Vodka Twists.

 

The moral of this story stands,

Keep your precious drink in hand.

Drink it fast, drink it quick,

Morning after…now – you sick.

 

©Hassell/Young

 

Men In Black

Men In Black
Men In Black

 

The other day

The men in black

Took my friend away

Just like that

They put him in a room

With those two way mirrors

Interrogated him for hours

And hours

They asked me how we met

That’s when I smelled a rat

What was my relationship to the

Accused

Questions like that

Well now my friend

is under lock and key

By the FBI

And the CIA

He wanted to be a taxidermist

Unfortunately, instead

He got too close to Area 51

And they almost shot him dead

Now they’re watching me

They completely trashed my place

And if I don’t play ball

They’ll redesign my face.

© Sue Young

Artwork by ©Ste Young

Where Does Loneliness Go?

Where does loneliness go

When it’s not in your heart?

Does it creep into your wardrobe

Does it stay under your floorboards

Until your heart starts to break again?

Where does loneliness go?

When it’s not wanted?

Does it sit and plan its comeback

A No.1 hit that will throw you off your feet

Punch you in the stomach and make you bleed all over the floor.

You don’t do that to people and get away with it.

So no wonder loneliness hides

With stealth and cunning

When you’re happy go lucky.

Where does loneliness go

When you’re not feeling alone?

Does it slither out of sight

Creeping in shame

A criminal that no-one wants to catch.

When it’s not grabbing hold of you

Does loneliness get lonely too?

 

© Sue Young

 

I Wish I Was A Vampire

There’s a story behind this, that I feel is more important than the thing I wrote, so I’ll explain the inspiration behind it first.

When I was about 32, (yes, a long time ago) I remember thinking quite strongly that although I loved my husband, and he, me, I couldn’t control him, in any way.

I know, I know, why should I want to? I’m not meant to. How dare I ! So maybe control is the wrong word. Okay, how can I put this…I believe many people, rightly or wrongly, are subtly manipulating everyone else, and some people are doing it blatantly. It’s become a social skill. Maybe it was always a social skill, a way of communicating, or perhaps getting what one wants. How sad. Why can’t we all be honest?

What you see is what you get. No walls. No façade. No mask. No games.

So…I couldn’t control him. I couldn’t manipulate him. It seemed every other f***** around him could. It was at that time that I felt the sin of envy come upon me.

I felt…impotent. Useless. Weak. The Pixies might sing, ‘Where Is My Mind?’ but I was singing, ‘Where Is My Guile?’

I thought I should have some power, some feminine wiles and then I thought about how nice it would be, for me, to be a vampire, full of hypnotic mind games and occultist tricks. I guess at the time, I was watching how certain people could get him to do certain things,  but if I said the same thing, it didn’t work. So it was a case of, why can’t I be more like such and such?

I went up to a person (his younger brother) who seemed to be having some influence over my husband and I said, ‘How come you can get Ste, (my husband) to do this, that, or whatever, but if I was to say the same thing, it wouldn’t have any impact?’ The poor guy just smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He was obviously embarrassed and a little bit baffled. So I approach the husband and ask the same question and he says. ‘It’s HOW something is said, and not WHAT is said,’

But to me, that just smacked of vampire. I felt that I’d missed out on some very special things simply because I refused to make a political move. So I wrote this and it helped a little  and I never tried to control things again.

To my chagrin, I discovered that it was just brotherly love and I couldn’t compete with that. The relationship dynamics were different. So I’m very happy to say that I relaxed and stopped trying to control things. After that, I found they got better by themselves very naturally. What I also discovered is that it is better to be patient, to be open, to learn wisdom, then it is to have guile.

Wish I was a vampire

To charm the charmless

To manipulate who I chose

To not have qualms

To lack integrity

To have duplicity

How do I make you bend to my will.

To want to.

Making friends

And influencing people

To have you eating out of my hand

Hypnotism- fast food style

On the bus

In the home

During the news

Quick, clean, undetectable

But I am mortal

Without spells

Magic is not within me

I can’t make anything happen

No powers of persuasion

No way to make you change direction

Or chose a different milk shake from your usual

It’s all beyond me

This charm lark

You don’t have to be a vampire to make it work

But it helps.

Of course, none of this applies now, but it’s good to look back on issues we have struggled with and are now resolved. It’s comforting when we see where we’ve been and how much we’ve learned. As soon as you stop fighting something, it seems to go away. It’s good to be reminded of the past, especially when it leads to learning, evolving as a human being and ultimate education, which results in a more peaceful and happier life.

If you dig out your old poems/verses/things you have written, you can see how important it was for you to feel those things at the time, how far you’ve come and how much you’ve evolved and grown. An old poem/piece of writing is like a snapshot from the past, which may have counselled us at the time, and may still even help us in the future.

 

© Sue Young

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Cheese

Dear Cheese,

I hope you will remember when we spent many sultry nights of melting passion together, under the grill. I do recall, I snuggled up to dill pickle in the serving hatch, but, you must believe me when I say, it meant nothing to me. Do you remember that everything went so well until that fateful night? Bacon came along and stole your heart. Don’t think I didn’t see you together in that burger bar. You lied to me. You told me you were a vegetarian.

How I cried and grew moist, then went limp. I had to sit in a colander for an hour, draining my tears. It takes all my energy to get my bony green ass from one side of the kitchen counter to the other these days. I am going off. I am perishing. I feel that these once proud florets will never feel your cheesy sauce again. I pray that you will see the error of your ways. Of course you knew your future did not belong in a bun with bacon and you took off.

What I can’t believe though, what really rocked my world, was when you went with the lettuce. I thought I was the boring one, but really, lettuce? You’re really scraping the bottom of the crisper now aren’t you?  Is that my competition? Is that the best you can do? I mean lettuce and cheese don’t even go together, much. We were always a much more complimentary combination. Everyone said so. We went together like broccoli and cheese, because that’s exactly what we were. I am your destiny. Come to me, before I lose my mind completely and run away with the Bechamel.

Yours Faithfully,

Broccoli…not boring and certainly not as boring as lettuce.

P.S Cauliflower told me I was tasty. Look what you’re missing.

P.P.S Yes, take one last look Buster ! I’m outta here, on my slightly browning stem. Bechamel…hello…you are very pale and interesting these days…

 

© Sue Young

Keep Away From Art

(I wrote this twenty five years ago. My then boyfriend, who is now my husband, was/is an artist. I was inspired at the time, by the pretentiousness of the art world)

 

Nathan is an artist

And he’s coming to tea.

He’s a bit up himself

So I said to my boyfriend

Who is also an artist

A conversation may start

So keep away from art.

Nathan likes to daub paint onto canvas

with his private parts

So I say to my  boyfriend

Talk freely about anything

But if a conversation starts

Keep away from art.

Nathan gets paid

Obscene amounts of money

to paint,

with his idea of a brush

My boyfriend is penniless

He doesn’t want to bend

Nathan’s ear.

He wants to bend

his paintings.

So I say, a conversation will probably start

so whatever you do,

keep away from art.

But what happened?

Nathan came to tea.

Did a conversation start?

Did they keep away from art?

Did they hell

Paint and body parts flew.

 

Po-et-tree & Vurz © Sue Young