A poem by Will Mason.
“Like many of us, I’ve been doing what I can to adjust to lockdown. Throughout that period I found myself doing a lot more creative writing of this kind, and using rhyme schemes for the first time as a way to open up some new avenues for narrative poetry (I find using a rhyme scheme limits my options and makes writing a bit quicker, easier and more fun). I wrote a number of poems like this over the past 8 weeks or so.
Michael Spike is a character I came up with based on some personal characteristics and other bits and pieces. The Putrid Spew was written throughout a particularly difficult period. You will remember that before the sun came out we had a protracted period of rain. This was pretty bleak, particularly when paired with the isolation of working from home and the obvious weight of the current moment. I think that constituted the first part of the narrative – Michael, in the hut, fixing leaks and staring at the fog. The ‘hollow place’ that Michael slips into represents a deeper depressive episode. A very disorienting and troubling experience. In the story, Michael loses himself, but then comes back around quite quickly. He’s able to climb out of the hollow, but he’s shaken and affected by the experience.”
——
Teeming rain had poured for months
Down from the misted sodden skies
So dark and pregnant with the damp
There was no sign it would subside
The kind that hammers on the roof
And stings you sideways in the wind
A rain that writes off stepping out
And cancels all plans but staying in
For several weeks Michael had stayed
Slumped in the shadows of his hut
Fixing leaks springing from the roof
With smears of glob plugging them shut
Each noon he squinted at the fog
Hoping the dreary glum might lift
But Gloomy Island was a place that
Seemed to hold on to the mist
This strange but settled summer space
Turned to a quagmire in the rains
And with no company on the island
Michael was stuck with his own brains
He muttered to amuse himself
Staying as switched on as he could
You might think that he’d clean his hut
But there you’d be misunderstood
The place was cluttered claustrophobic
Bursting with a thousand finds
Sprockets, old springs and rusty nails
Piled up the walls and round the sides
And with no relief on the horizon
From isolation or the rain
He emptied out his bags of things
Counting them, time and time again
– Four hundred and six rusty nails
– Sixty eight old sprockets (different sizes)
– Seven boxes of broken springs
– Three and a half tubs of glob
All of this stuff he had to hand
But none of it would do for food
And those two shrivelled sprouting spuds
Wouldn’t go far, even when stewed
Itching his damp flea bitten feet
He thought What grows out in the mud?
Perhaps a flat toadstool would do?
Or some squirming brown bark bugs?
Either way, there was no doubt
That just to make it through the rains
Michael would have to venture out
Before he starved or went insane
To find some food out in the bog
That had progressed beyond his door
After eight weeks of stewing spuds
He couldn’t face spuds, anymore!
So with some rags draped on his back
And an old sack for a hood
He grabbed his pack to fill with grubs
And slumped outside into the crud
Eeeerk, SMACK …
Eeeerk, SMACK …
The front door swung open and shut
Agitated by the wind
Creaking as Michael disappeared
Into a fog that swallowed him
This was a fog so thick and dense
That Michael couldn’t see at all
The kind that clinged to what it could
Like flailing hands before a fall
The wind howled …
The rain pounded …
Though his progress wasn’t fast
He pushed on one step at a time
Pulling his soiled and sodden boots
Through sticky pools of mud and grime
And in (who knows how long it took)
After the worst parts of the bog
A jagged line of the forest trees
Appeared beyond the thickened fog …
The forest edge was looming weary damp and darkened by fatigue
Six Oaks had gathered there in mourning of an old uprooted tree
The fall had torn an earthy hole where roots had once helped it to stand
Thick roots that now splayed up and outwards like a giant open hand …
Right in Michael’s line of sight
He saw that hollow in the ground
And thought it seemed like just the place
That giant toadstools could be found
It was a bleak and damp but murky
Empty muddied hollow space
Intrigued, he peered over the edge
Then slipped into that shadow place
Clusters of toadstools filled the floor
And grew from crevices in rows
But he was not alone down there
Michael had joined a stinking toad
The thing was fat bloated and greasy
Like a Roman at a feast
Gorging on toadstools ‘till it wretched
And once it belched it would repeat
The smell completely filled the hollow
Which was pooled with putrid spew
But it was from these steaming pools
That all the biggest toadstools grew
Now, Michael had a choice …
Knowing how these things had grown
Did he hold his nose and eat?
Or stay hungry and head back home?
Drenched and weary from the rains
Poor Michael wasn’t thinking straight
He took a breath and closed his eyes
Then pinched his nose and stuffed his face
Michael binged on the toadstools tearing them from the putrid ground
Chewing them down to greyish slop and making greedy slurping sounds
The more he ate the more he felt a lightness building in his head
That lightness turned to dizziness and then to nausea and dread
Slumping down against the earth, Michael was drugged, or so it seemed
He crawled into a spinning ball and slipped into an awful dream
The hollow’s seeping walls collapsed and started sinking into stew
Michael looked down at his limbs to see that they were sinking too
The darkness crept heavy and fast as Michael’s mind began to twist
He felt a madness in his head one that he feared might never lift
And falling deeper in the depths Michael’s whole world began to throb
Just as a message came to him – “Michael, wake up! The rain has stopped”
HE STARTED WITH A JOLT
Not quite sure where he was at first
Grasping his arms and legs to check
They hadn’t melted into dirt
A beam of sunlight warmed his face
Just breaking through the splaying the roots
Scratching his eyes now with his palms
He looked around dazed and confused
There was no sign of any toad …
Perhaps the thing had crawled away?
In fact the whole hollow looked different
In the clearer light of day
Grabbing the earth he clambered
Up now to the level of the bog
Which had been baking in the sunlight
Burning through the lifting fog
Uncertain quite what had occurred
Or if it had, the way it seemed
He took a cautious look around
Michael was changed by what he’d seen
Impressions from that hollow place
Had pressed a mark upon his self
The thoughts he’d thought
The depths he’d crept
The place he’d been
The things he’d felt
The rains had passed but Michael knew
Down in the marrow of his bones
That they’d come back, they always do
He couldn’t face that all alone
Something was clear there in the sun
His lonesome habits had to end
Leaving the hollow place behind
He stumbled off to find a friend