My wonderful friend and talented comic-book artist Gregory Mackay recently sent me a copy of a poem I wrote to him in the back of a Speech Night program in 1993. We were both about 18 years old.

 

The poem is terrible. Obviously. And the handwriting is childish. And I can’t spell “Bar Mitzvah”.

 

 

 

A Poem For Gregory

 

As the air makes itself known

To my soul’s colon, I am to moan

And make nonsense of something

So tangible. My teenage angst brings

Its usual wave of pubescent apathy.

What is apathy anyway?

I don’t care.

 

As I lie still in my wall to wall

Fleshpot, I become brilliant. So all

My life is at an end – except the

Unending bits. And I will try to be

The salt on your fish fingers forever.

The pork at your bar mitzvah – never.

Fuck you all

 

1/12/93

James Hazelden