Feeling like the Hulk on a Wednesday By Joe Hakim

You've heard it before but I'm saying it again: you become that which you despise. Excuse me while I change, and whatever you do don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. I feel it in my chest when I work. I feel it in my gut when I drink. I feel it in my head when I smoke. I feel it in my cock when I fuck. The fallout from the Gamma radiation.

I try to do something about it, but it only seems to make it worse, and the worse it gets, the more I like it. Think of Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno in the seventies Hulk TV show. But at least I'm not green. Looking in the mirror, in the toilet in the shopping centre, I realise the person looking back is not the same person that looked back a few months ago. Understand this:

It's contained within the stale gestures of greeting - Your boss in the corridor, Your girl in the bed, Your friends on the phone, Your family stuck in the living room eating junk food and watching television. Hulk smashed. 'Are you losing weight?' 'Are you getting enough sleep?' 'Are you drinking too much?' I nod and shake my head at the correct intervals. Going through the motions, the mushroom cloud and the mutations. But at least I'm not green.

Copyright © Joe Hakim 2005

Poetry - Take a Break and Savour a Tsunami ..By Jenny Ross

	Weddings and grandchildren, biscuits and pets (Divorce and brats, obesity and vets...) Serial killers, transvestite husbands, (Bearded van drivers, strange long-haired busmen) Sights from beyond the grave, Read more...

Poetry - Birdsong and Dreaming By Craig Livings

	I see you lying there confused, alone In your own world away from me I wonder what you're dreaming when you lay there oh so peaceful I wonder if you're dreaming of me Read more...

Poetry - A Sea of Humanity By Del "Abe" Jones, White Bluff, TN

	Mother Nature shows Us once again That She is really in Control How She can rearrange this Earth Right down to It's very Soul. The Human, just one stage of Life Read more...

Poetry - X Marks The Spot By Amy Rout
	Bucket in one hand Spade in the other Don't go too far Were the words of my mother Sand between my toes Read more...

Poetry - Occasionally. By Lee Cassanell

	Sometimes I'm a Bastard Sometimes I'm the Pope Sometimes I don't bathe for days Sometimes I drop the soap. Sometimes my eyes are open Read more...

Poetry - An Old Man's Afternoon By Maurice Fairfield
	In a would be poets' pub Smoke stained Dusty, (that's the pub not me) And some of the would be poets too If truth were told, as truth must be Read more...

Poetry - In the End By Joe Hakim

	In the end you have to settle for the moments in between everything else. You get in from work Read more...

Poetry - Xmas 2004 By Anonymous
	It's August, but the adverts already bawl, Come, consume this festive Yule! Why be different? Follow that trend, And get to the shops to spend, Spend, SPEND! To get the kids something fantastic, Don't stress with wonga, just flash ya plastic. Read more...

Poetry - The Morning after... By Lee Cassanell

	Four in the morning your eyes start to flicker Mouth is a mire of tobacco and liquor What happened last night? Who's to blame for the slaughter? Lips stung and dry call for Aspirin and water. Read more...

Poetry - How to Lose Friends and Alienate People By Lee Cassanell

	I love you like a daydream Like an opened pack of Rolos, I love you like the summer Like a Jimi Hendrix solo, I love you like the ocean loves and laps at every wave, Read more...

Poetry - A Case of Silly String and Whatever Next By Steve Rudd
	Money is the root of all evil, A positive thought that's not shared is a waste. So what if I've got an inferiority complex? Insecurity is so simple to evade. If you give me a dollar I'll trade it for a book, Second hand glances deflect scathing good looks. Read more...

Poetry - InSectEyes By M D Tasker
	Blackheaded cockchafers Skittered through dream grass pastures Their stench in the stale bedroom air I inhaled sharply, breaking the surface of my sleep Time unfolding forwards, infuriating already, fast in its creep. Read more...

Poetry - Schoolboy Ethics By Maurice Fairfield
	We're not going to cut and run We'll stay till the job is done We're hard men here in Australia We'll hang tough and never fail ya Socialists and Greenies may Live to fight another day. Read more...