THE SAD COUPLE

Foretold, told four times, a man is given sufficient warning about the imminence of morning,

Yet—up at the crack of dawn—he remains in awe,

Oblivious, despite being told the score,

He’s none the wiser for his memory’s poor.

Serrated edges grated wedges propping open doors,

Out of which pop whores,

They display their price lists and do their chores,

It’s the sort of thing his wife abhors,

She rushes round slamming doors.

She screams her reproach as his head focuses on the sunrise,

The unbelievable source of his recent surprise,

He’s play-acting to disguise his guilt is his wife’s surmise.

Later, inspired by a truculent waiter, she repeatedly orders rounds of cucumber sandwiches she refuses to eat,

Momentarily, it makes her life complete,

But the next day is a repeat of the complete nonsense she feels is her lot,

She wakes with her nose blocked with snot.

She has to work, she groans climbing into the car she says she needs,

She has to be so strong because she’s surrounded by weeds.

At work, she spreads her germs and ill feeling,

Half of her subordinates are cowering, the other half are reeling,

As her congested, venomous tirades upbraids both the innocent and the slow,

All day long until it’s time to go.

Lo—at home her cretin spouse, still in the house, is transfixed by the sunset,

Fuelled by a sense of her martyrdom, her wrath, she decides, he will not forget,

She clubs his skull with cucumbers soaked in various fluids—endorsed in a best selling book by feminist Druids.

As the stunning sunset fades, she wades in so he’s doubly stunned,

Resenting every pleasure he’s had that she feels she’s had to fund.

In a stupor on the floor, he cannot take any more,

Just as she runs out of cucumbers from her usually ample store,

In an alcove adorned with pentagrams above the kitchen floor,

Where, on her knees, she sees processions of oppressed women suffering throughout time,

While she fervently prays to female deities she invents with names that always rhyme.

Her husband is a sexist parasite; she knows that is his crime.

Stabbing Action Man figures with needles, she longs for occult powers she equates with voodoo.

She comforts herself at the reading groups she forms,

Reciting Germaine Greer and Kate Millet, fondling her pierced nipples, then she nibbles a lamb fillet.

Of course her friends support her, they exhort her to leave her irredeemable husband,

They urge her to join their lottery funded lesbian kibbutz,

And she often wonders why she doesn’t.

But then, she knows, he would assume he’d won,

And make it awkward for her to see Farley, their son.

This eight-year-old product of their unhappy union was her pride and joy,

Being a trendily afflicted—with Asperger’s—introverted boy,

He rarely spoke, would often choke and collected bags of snails,

He wet his pants and worse, frightened his teachers and made them curse,

But, for her, he was a blessing—like a living holy sign,

She only had to look at him and everything was fine,

Because in him she saw a spark she knew was quite divine.

Battered unconscious with cucumbers, her husband slumbers on the bedroom floor,

He dreams of custard creams on silver trays,

Proffered by professionals whose profession was anticipating his pleasure,

Every moment of the dream, for him, was a moment to treasure,

For in his dream he’s a man of leisure,

Dropping in on smiling friends, he lends his time to needy virgins,

Eating and drinking as and when he pleases,

He wheezes in the backs of chauffeur driven limos exhaling expensive cigars,

Stopping for cocktail parties thrown in his honour in all of his favourite bars.

He floats on lilos in heated pools, surrounded by admirers he elegantly schools,

His eloquent instructions elicit their drools,

He made his fortune out of educating fools,

His self-help series provides the world with indispensable tools.

Gurus seek his guidance, he writes speeches for the Dalai Lama,

His words and actions are globally revered,

Even in the press, his reputation’s never been smeared:

Now, that is, his consciousness has disappeared.

But in reality, hate lies in wait.

His wife always gets him to swallow her bait.

If he had a friend in whom he could confide,

He’d admit he’d sometimes considered suicide.

But then, his wife would think that she had won,

His funeral, for her and her feminist mates, would be a source of fun,

Besides, he’d never again see his son and that would mean… No more snails!

And with this thought, his weary heart fails

(Leaving me free to tell other tales—Julian Cloran.)