Day 5 - Sunday 5th Jan 2025.
Today I am going to attempt to write a poem from scratch in ten minutes. I have just pressed start on the timer for ten minutes. here goes. I have absolutely no idea what I will write.
Poo Poo
My head is full of shit.
Yours is too.
children’s heads are not full of shit.
they are full of poo.
“Poo poo and wee wee diarrhoea!” - that’s what my son will say,
if he wants to get a laugh.
He often does,
because he’s learning a craft.
how to work the room.
a room he just arrived in.
from who knows where.
from thin air
en plein air.
Go to the swimming pool. But don’t do laps.
Sit in the spa. With the spas.
let the warm water talk to you again.
It’s where you came from
and where you will return to.
Warm water.
Just don’t do a pee-pee or a poo-poo,
although, in your heart of hearts
I know,
a part of you
still wants to.
look around at all the disabled. Smiling. About nothing.
You are smart.
They are wise.
Is that a very big surprise?
But we can’t go back.
We cant make America great again
or live in yurts again
or fix old hurts again.
We have to get out of the bath.
and get a laugh from a room,
that is full of shit.
So when you get out of the warm water, and you hear your son or daughter
look up at you with perfect eyes, and say silly things
don’t think them lies
because they are not.
They are all that you have got.
And the potty mouth that tells the tale,
of the orifices at the breakfast table,
that perfect little cupid mouth,
the sound of that laugh, is going away . Every day.
The dried rice krispies caked on.
the Weetabix inexplicably in your hair.
Is going away.
Day by day by day.
And you will yearn for someone in the boardroom,
to just announce that “this is all wee wee and poo poo!”
Because it is.
So love yourself , as you love your children,
and let their funny jokes tickle your funny bone,
or when you are old and grey and full of sleep
you will be all alone.
That is an avoidable disaster, with the salt of the master, rubbed into the wound of your own disgrace.
I love your face.
say that to someone today.
Let the sun and the chlorine and the swimming pool wash away all of the shit that is your thoughts.
Say I love you today - to someone you actually love.
Why on earth not?
and don’t try to be cute with the ending.
Just finish the poem when you have finished your thoughts.
As your children do.
And go back to eating your rice krispies,
after the wee wee and the poo poo.
Niall Campbell
8 minutes to write. Ten for editing. Get out of your own way.