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Whiteboard Scattergraph

Alex Saynor

Thursday, July 20th, 2023

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 It was like that angst in the chest
you mentioned, but then it exploded.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 My ‘self’ was in a hundred fragments.
All I had was a bed and a skylight,

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 a window on the incomprehensible.
Drifting off, I muddled cliffs and gardens:

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Was it West Bay, Lyme Regis or Sidmouth?
Football grounds merged: part Brunton Park,

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 part Craven Cottage, part kickabout
at the old MK hockey stadium

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 with Oxford United reserves –
or were they off duty cinema workers?

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 About 12 0′ Clock, somehow scrambling up
for toast and a roll up, with a roll down

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 whiteboard scattergraph of faults,
their points the day’s shielded stars
all isolated from their cause,

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 it was like that angst in the chest again,
but then it broke. Now you’re out

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 at this car park. ‘No fear’ and ‘One life: live it’
on the back of a Mitsubishi Warrior,

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 deep azure ocean beneath wild camping grounds
picked up in the eyes and a blue O’Neill shirt.

12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 This new hope is tentative. Will there be enough
finding gaps between or augmenting major league

13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 prescription drugs, all the dietary limitations,
the social times for which you’re out of action?

14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 It was like that angst, but then it broke
from its containment, lost its physical presence

to all our winding rivers of memory,
took root in close family and distant friends.

15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 I can’t describe the feeling so say ‘fixed’
and ‘broken’, currents surging to a tsunami.

16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 I sometimes wish there was a sole conductor
to form a single melody from all our memories.

Notes

This is about the confusion that can arise from an episode of poor mental health – how can it appear that meaning has been lost, but will its disparate threads be co-ordinated by someone else, or some external force? Even places of profound emotional resonance, such as football grounds you’ve visited since you were young, can become confused. The examples are a composite of the experiences of a good friend & some of my own – it was based on a conversation between us.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/whiteboard-scattergraph/