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I've been scribbling this and that all my life - from filling rolls and rolls of the old man's lining paper with drawings, notes and comic strips to flash fiction and eventually novels and poetry. It's a part of me as much as the drink is/was/is. It used to be beside me when I was young and it was fun and then for the longest time it was ahead of me, leading me on, pulling me about and blocking my view. Currently it's behind me. Still tethered, still there, still a part of me. Only this time I am out in front, with clarity of vision.
I originally wrote this submission to Write Speak Recover a few years back when I was in my barfly heyday, I guess. It’s intended to be told from the perspective of a long-time local pondering the whereabouts of another local who hasn’t been around for a while. I wrote it as a poured outburst, or a rant, rather than a poem of any structure or form. The ramblings of the barfly. I designed it so that it can be read as either the internal or external monologue of the narrator – as oftentimes I felt like I was talking aloud to empty spaces as much as I was talking to myself internally. I dwelt within a strange, detached internal space filled with anger, belligerence and recrimination.
Strain
We all saw him, from time to time, at the end of the bar, with his moleskine book, and 9-ball eyes, red diamond frames, just before tears, or just after a bawl.
Nobody ever saw him cry, but we could see the strain, a flash of mania, a desperate laugh, that sudden vacancy, like the moment between records, when the jukie makes a choice, silence and strain, all in his eyes.
Yeah, we all saw him, he seemed pleasant enough, borderline polite, he loved the empty glass, and he hated a full one, pounding the drink, horny for the empty glass, always there, at the end of the bar, in his shit clothes.
He told us a few times, of stories he’d written, held up that moleskine, like he was so troubled, like he was Chinasky, but really we all thought he was another man’s puke, discovered in a toilet, the wince as the cubicle opens, and then you see the bowl, or when you wash your hands, circling sick, in an unplugged sink, down he goes.
Some of us goaded him, mocked the cunt, but it was through love, banter I guess, he never got mad, just to the drink, as for desire? His mind was up for it, with Chloe, or with Sara, or whoever pushed the glass, when he wasn’t around, Chloe, or Sara, said his body wasn’t there, the man was a vase, at the back of an auction, once owned by someone, maybe even loved, that someone had gone, now he’s under the hammer, couldn’t give him away.
He was nice enough, but we haven’t seen him in years, no stories, or jokes, no clichéd notebook, we’re still here, and he’s somewhere else, Chloe, or Sara say TV, maybe radio, I heard suicide, 9 ball eye rolling, bathtub cliché, still he ain’t here no more, that pleasant enough vase, he’s someplace else, and I’m still here.
I think sometimes, if he had told his secret, told of the strain, I would’ve believed him, then we’d go together, get my own little book, written of my own little strain, but I never asked, and he never said, nobody saw that strain, around those 9 ball eyes, that strain in silence, louder than records,
But he ain’t around here no more, But we fucking are.
On the poem
After writing Strain, I began to read it aloud and perform it (privately) and what was interesting to me, was that as I was performing it, I was using a different voice – a rough, angry voice that instinctively came out of me. At first, I thought it was the angry narrator of the poem pissed off that the other local has vanished. I liked the voice, I liked the performance – it just didn’t feel natural to recite it in my ‘normal’ voice. Now that I am on my recovery journey, I feel that the angry voice is me – or at least, Barfly Graham - angry to be discarded as other Graham has gone away, off to new places…maybe he will come back to the bar one day? Barfly Graham hopes he will because of the company. But it’s doubtful. It’s sunny outside the bar.
On the writing process
I am a novelist over a poet – I find the former far ‘easier’ than the latter. It just comes naturally to me. There is something about the discipline, the planning, the commitment and scope that really appeals to me. It’s also a way for me to escape completely – when I am in production on a book it just consumes me entirely. I am gobbled up by it. And while I am interacting day to day and going about my bits - really, I am somewhere else – always thinking, always pondering, always working out the puzzle. This is comforting to me. I can control the world of the novel completely – it’s a safer space within which everything makes sense. I just live there.
Poetry, on the other hand, just falls out of me – before I started my recovery journey, I would wake up and find I had written 5, 10, 20 poems when I had got home from wherever. They weren’t complete by any means, or even good half the time – and I had absolutely zero memory of writing them. But there seemed to be a voice in there – one belonging to someone I didn’t know. I would think “where did that come from? So weird”. Someone else was trying to get a word in edgeways when I was blackout. Pretty much uniformly, these scratches and scribbles would be sad, and they would be far away. I remember reading one particular line from a late night splurge – it was just there in the middle of word document, all on its own. It said: “no one seems to see the forgotten me.” I read that and I welled up a bit. There was a boy in there somewhere, fingertips poking out from the quicksand, disappearing forever. That line – “no one seems to see the forgotten me’ was the spark, I think. That disappearing boy was fun, and light – a good kid. I can be fun and light.
Favourite poets, poetry nights, books or other resources
Elena Shvarts and Anna Akhmatova mean a lot to me, especially because their work was introduced to me by someone dear to me. I enjoy Rimbaud and Keats – my knowledge on more contemporary poets is almost non-existent which is something I am excited to put right. For poetry nights, the welcoming atmosphere at Orbit's open mic night is hard to beat, and for something more metal (but no less welcoming and encouraging) I would recommend the slam at the wonderful Raven Records in Camden. For someone who has been writing for so long, all of this feels really new to me. I have been ‘out there’ for decades and only now am I coming home and getting some appetite back. I am ready to dive in and discover all these beautiful voices all around me. It’s things like Write Speak Recover that are enabling and empowering me to do this.
Write Speak Recover, in collaboration with TheNeverPress, is an open, free and welcoming initiative founded by poet and photographer Tim Foley that celebrates poets who are using their art to find strength in their recovery journey from any form of dis-ease.
We invite you to follow Write Speak Recover on instagram and to reach out to Tim Foley at WSR or us directly at the zine to learn more, or put yourself forward to be featured in this initiative.
Be kind. Stay present. One moment after the next.
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