MARC CARVER - POEMS

Marc Carver writes because he has nothing else to do.

​TOILET

​I walked out the gym late
the woman at reception gave me a wry smile as I walked out with a towel on my head,
We went to screwfix to pick up the toilet.
I walked in towel still on my head she and all the butch men started to look at me staring at the towel.
I walked to the counter.
"What is the matter nobody ever seen a man with a towel on their head before."
They all looked away and we left with our brand new toilet. 

THE WOMAN

​I met the woman again last night
mostly I have avoided her over the years
the way I avoid everybody.
She told me I looked like a skier
I told her I had been known to ski in my past
but everything was in my past now.
She said she liked my short stories from all those years ago
something that was powerful that lingered around the coffee table for days.
I told her she was kind but of course she wasn't.
She was in old people's care homes with a music group 
breathing new life into the old
keeping them alive just that little bit longer.
She didn't mention why we had not talked in years.
She had that sense about me that something bad was going to happen the way a lot of people know even if I didn't know myself.
Not yet.
When she said goodbye she did it with that air that the conversation was not important to her at all and off she went.
I wonder if I will talk to her next time if there is a next time

LOSE

​What do you do when you are alone
that is the real question.
I don't know what others do.
I can sit in silence writing and there is nothing else in the world
but more times than not I do other things.
Things so I don't have to write
but why I don't know.
Things so I don't have to be alone even though
I run from people 
I walk the other way when I see them.
I avoid them 
but that makes me lonelier 
so lonely I can't even write.
So what do I do 
stay alone 
run to people 
pester them into talking to me.
It is not that I am uninteresting
I can laugh and be agreeable
yeah I can be a good guy 
but in the end I have to lose 
I have to lose 

TELL ME A STORY

​i want people to tell me about their lives
their stories 
in that way I want to be a stenographer of other people's lives a chronicler.
My life is not important at all only to tell theirs
but the sick part of it all is I am shy, I can't talk to people only when I am thrown into life but life has not done that lately 
all it does is keep me here
hiding from everybody.
Sleeping and waiting