The Sunday Morning Poet: Wayne Dean Richards in OUTSIDELEFT

Wayne Dean-Richards has shared 18 poems for us to publish during 2023. The collection is called It's a Mad World, But Funny. Eventually there will be a free, downloadable PDF of all the poems and a planned A6 compendium too. (Links to all of the poems way down the page.)

Dostoevsky didn’t have to put up with this

as I was about to put
finger to keyboard
my dearly beloved broke open
a conversation about strong
bleach, pancakes, and the price of tea.

when we were done
I was ready to start -
but my next-door neighbour
started work.

he’s a DJ, tall and strong
mixing tracks what he calls
this part of his job.
tonight, he was mixing drum tracks and worked till
they formed a single, rapid drumbeat
inside my fucking skull.

when he was finished
I entertained the possibility
that I might now write something
at last.

but this time
the cats were at me:
clawing my legs
demanding fish in no uncertain terms.

more distraction followed.

an ambulance turned up
at the house across the street.

they wheeled out
the old guy who lives there
his poor face pale and sweaty,
a thick blanket rolled
right up to his chin.

I couldn’t not watch.

then a van
shed a load of scrap metal
all over the road outside my house.
(my DJ neighbor would’ve been proud
of the percussiveness.)

by now it was fully dark
and crazies were wandering
up and down outside:
noise invading from all angles.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”
I said.

I’d been going to start work on a novel
but with so much distraction
and so little time left
I thought I’d settle on a poem.

only when I wrote down the title
my dearly beloved
leaned over
and said,
“that’s not how you spell Dostoyevsky.”

Essential Information
The 18 poems comprising Wayne Dean-Richards' IT'S A MAD WORLD BUT FUNNY series are listed below. Outsideleft published them all throughout 2023 and 2024. A free downloadable PDF and a limited edition A6 Outsideleft Booklet (for neither profit or loss) is available now we are at the end.

Buy A Mad World But Funny from our new otherwise quite empty shop here

Download a PDF version for free here

It's A Mad World But Funny (complete)