Never mind this bollocks

April 10, Napowrimo 2026. On this happy day for me, we are asked to follow in the footsteps of poet Geoffrey Brock and write a brisk, concise poem about grief.

Tired of the sickening state of this world, I chose to find a glimmer of hope amongst the cartloads of grief our “heroes’ tip upon us daily.

Your wish? To rest our dreams in the marble catacombs of your morbid melancholy.
My chiselled tears of stone will seal your dank vault’s doors and drown our grief within.
The safety pin unclasped, greed’s seeds were sown. Sorrowful self-pity bloomed.

How could you leave us and yet remain? Don’t follow heroes, you said! Did your once brilliant mind contract, contradicting your expanding paunch? Congratulations Punch, filthy lucre ain’t nothing new.

Like a rabid hyena, you gnaw the bleeding bones of hope’s child.
The stench of your stage-spewn words;
Bitter acid to my ears, rust-flaked barbed wire in my eyes; cellar shadows smothering my heart.
Where did you go? Where did you go?