The gibbering sea You arrive, dandy with a hat on and a story of the hat, but I was like a full bin bag that needs to go inside another bin bag. When your washing machine leaks the whole town floods, but we’re used to it by now we sleep with sandbags. You arrive with memories of punchlines but I can’t sit here and listen again. All our stories have oars and are rowing away. When you keep the taps running with the plug in, it’s inconvenient for the people who live downstairs. Your floor is their ceiling and their floor is the ceiling of the people who live below and on and on until the core of the earth. The soggy core. The damp centre of everything.
John Osborne writes poems, scripts and stories. His poetry has been broadcast on Radio 1, Radio 3, XFM, BBC 6Music and Soho Radio and has been published in The Guardian and The Big Issue. His new collection A Supermarket Love Story is published by Go Faster Stripe.
Rough Diamond Poetry 