Wasteland Jazz

She’s working on her cross-stitch, 

I’m just sat in the bed beside her, waiting for something, maybe.

Sex? 

The night?

Poetry?

It doesn’t matter.

The stars? 

Definitely.

I rub the callus of my thumb with my fingertip,

It’s been hardening over the last year from using the overhanging hose at work,

Washing the dishes, (we call it the dive), for hours each night.

It’s a quiet evening over here in the palms of the world.

We’re not talking much… it’s not really needed, y’know, 

And there’s the records filling the space for us anyhow.

It’s sort of a mellow Tuesday night.

Though I have a drink so I’m plenty entertained.

In truth I would, as life is, be nowhere else but here.

I then put Chet on once Miles has blown out,

The music matching the simple sky, ‘kind of blue’.

I’m wearing nothing but my pale pink shirt, full of new holes and old stitchings from old holes,

Soft and ruined.

The world is torn—a nicer place to come.

Horns blow,

Burning brass volcanos over here between the walls of the wasteland jazz.

And then it rains, and we hear the rain,

We listen from the same bed at the same time,

It’s nice,

It’s clean,

It’s good,

It’s working.

And hearing that she said “it’s raining”.

I said “yeah”.

I’m married to her, I thought—I felt married to her in that moment.

(I think I’ve seen this moment with my parents a few times, that’s why).

Anyways, I believe there is no need for exclusive possession of one’s soul,

In fact to share it with a woman, it can be a great thing.

I’m a 26 year old man from Gateshead, Newcastle, working a normal job and writing extensively in my spare time, after picking up writing as a Covid lockdown hobby it quickly turned into a great passion, now with a dozen publications in magazines and anthologies in the UK and US and 6 books published on Amazon, I feel myself finally with a creative outlet I can be proud of.