☀ Today's Poem: "Speech time" Hera Lindsay Bird

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new
nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal
That's how Abraham Lincoln started the Gettysburg address and he got
murdered in a theatre.
That's also how I have started my speech but I won't be murdered in a theatre
When I die, it will be an old-time injury, like falling into a threshing machine.

I am always making speeches, but speeches are a waste of time
The only useful speech is one where you enumerate someone's many failures
until they burst into tears
But if anyone is bursting into tears today it will be me
I just want to lie naked on a deckchair, fanning myself with divorce papers

I have called this speech 'speech time' so you will know it's time for speeches.
Anything can be a speech if you say it out loud for long enough
This is not freedom of speech, this is just extreme oratorial leeway
It's hot piss, melting the toilet ice

Speeches exist for the purpose of making other people think what you think
But I don't want just anyone to be able to think what I think
It's like if paisley were a natural resource, and people had to mine for it
You have to be stupid enough to want to

I've been making a lot of speeches recently because I published a book
And more than a book people like to hear you talk about your book
People don't like books they like speeches
But not this speech .......

people don't want to hear poetry, they want to hear people talking about
poetry
People don't want to hear poetry, they want to go home and not read poetry
and so do I
The only reason for poetry is to have a meadow in which to burn yourself
alive in
A picturesque meadow, with bonus violets

I am bored of making speeches
I have to say so many things I don't care about
It reminds me of life
It reminds me of when you are a cowboy and your hat gets too heavy

There is nothing in this world really worth saying
Being clever is a waste of time
I just want to sit around in Swarovski earrings and let old men debate my
literary merits
...but I don't even have my ears pierced

A speech is the opposite of a poem
A speech is telling people what to think, but I don't know what should
be thought
Sometimes it seems to me like other people aren't even trying to tell the truth
Like, when I watch porn I like it to be the retro kind when you can't see the
dick go in

Forget this speech, I'm changing the title
The new title of this speech is 'poem time' because this is poem time not
speech time
It's like when it's your first day as a soldier and you show up to the wrong war
Or like sexily cleaning the coliseum with a black feather duster

It's like panicking because your castle is too beautiful
Or an advent calendar for atheists full of empty windows
It's like pouring cold champagne all over your thighs
Or an evil piano that can only be played at midnight

A poem should never be a tourniquet
You have to let the blood goes where it wants
It's like trying to log into your email account but your password makes you
too sad
It's like Shakespeare ...................................... etc

I love writing poetry because it gives me casket pleasure
I can feel my death somewhere far off
It's like doing a shot of semen after sex and calling it a chaser
Or when you're a ghost and can feel the wind blow in through your sheetholes

Poetry is like a tuxedo that zips off at the knee
It's my pet boredom......
I sit in my room with the rain coming down
And I start to wonder about my life

Poetry is like pushing a pram through the dawn
But the pram is on fire, because the fire is your baby
It's like having an orgasm every time you hear middle C on a piano
Mozart is just elaborate foreplay to you

It's like upgrading your horse drawn carriage to a better, more technologically
advanced horse drawn carriage
Or squeezing your mop into a tropical fish tank
It's like being the Monet of blow jobs .................... and losing your boyfriend
to the Toulouse-Lautrec of blowjobs
Or a bedside drawer packed with snow

Poetry is a luxury behaviour
Like crying because you're too clever and nobody understands you
It's like cutting your hand at a party and referring to your blood
as 'party blood'
It 's like: welcome to good behaviour town, population 0