Tag Archives: sad

Donna

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2026


Our Donna
stood tall as a spire of sweaty meat,
stuck in a kitchen on a city centre square
staked on a pole, slowly spinning,
streaks of her skin sliding off under saline,
but stuck still and taken for granted.

She vanished piece by piece, every night shedding satisfaction
for salivating strangers seeking something more,
sharing of her salt in silence.

She perished – not so fast that folks saw and sobbed –
– not even slow so that we were sick of the sight and the stink –
but steady,
at the speed where the guy who slid her slick off the spit
and hauled up another one,
singing to himself and licking his lips,
didn’t even notice her slip away.

Understudy

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2025

I don’t miss you.

I miss the one who was there before –
the one who disappeared and you took her face,
– and her voice and her laugh –
her friends
– conned them you were her all along.
You’re not her.
I wonder if she’s out there somewhere
cursing your name like I daren’t.

The Depression Tests

by Chris Buchanan

Poetry, 2022

They ask at the end

of the depression tests

don’t they

Do you have any thoughts

of hurting yourself

or killing yourself

And they may break a touch

Here goes, be ready, look cool

And I say No –

And they’re back. Relax.

But I’m wondering

Should I finish?

The full answer is No –

Not myself. All of you.

Absolutely all of you.

I didn’t make this thing!

Dug it up, brought the canaries down.

I haven’t clawed out

a hole in the walls, inches back from it,

pressed in,

scented the indent with me,

a warning

So I’m can stay here working it, safe, smiling, name on the door,

mind your head

Breathe

Slow

The Giraffe-Necked Woman

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2020

Pretty sure no-one else can see
the giraffe-necked woman.
She only sees me:
she looks no-where else,
waits for me motionless behind blinds,
walls, trees, the dark, closed eyes,

her lids are relaxed, always as if amused,
lazily leaned into laughter lines
and her open mouth smile
so distended, her jaw
must be long broken, lips long gaped to
sticking that way, fastened, aching
long open, cartilege stiff,
the look never breaking,

Sometimes I meet her eyes,
stare her down, scrabble for the magic words.
Her reaction is resting there ready,
on me before I speak.

The neck is so I can’t forget, I guess:
she’s never explained any of it.
I get the impression I wouldn’t get it.
Or it’s funnier if I don’t know.

Dirt

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2014

—

The man tying the bag over his head,
the small of his back sore against a stair,
his lips gone numb and white, waiting to spread,
his legs tight like a mystic’s crossed in prayer,
his words like pulses wrapped in too much wool,
his neck that sometimes nicks him when he swallows,
his past like something catching on his skull,
his train of thought too stop-and-start to follow –
this wet-nosed ass who can’t quite tie the strings
is going to do a really selfish thing.
Before he goes he’ll guess at what you’ll say.
He’ll try to count your grief in weeks and days.
He’ll scare you half to death. This one will hurt.
You’ll drop and look for answers in his dirt.

Zoe in Me

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2014

—

I used to gaze into my navel all the time. It’s deep
and big, and clever and quiet. It seemed
like I could never get enough, all warm guts
and playful, static fluff and special smells
that seemed to tell of things you could only see
from the inside of a t-shirt, sized XXXL.
It was the navel of a poet.

Some poets have holes in their hearts, empty
and sucking like wounds, lonely, hungry
and down in the dumps of their chests,
but my blood pumps fine. It’s just red wine
and pasta and pies that sluice through tubes
and patter on my breast ’til I come to rest
an eye on my belly.

But Zoe is stuck in the button. Five years
it’s been now, and I curl up and tell her,
get out! You’re the girl that got away, yeah?
So get the fuck away and get out my curly hair.
She’s cluttering up my space, living in my place
and lately every pissing poem’s still about her.
It’s just embarrassing.

I want my navel back, blissfully empty, mysterious,
black with the absence of certain knowledge –
serious, studious, moody as fuck and bleak
as an ink blot period – a great big belt line firmly
buckled under it and locked up. I want to look
under my skin, get wise, see it all, from A to Y
and write about that.

Let me gaze into eternity,
feel empty,
mutter wisdom and musty skin
again.

In Case of Dementia

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2011

—

I’m the old man with dementia who
used to be an author.
I wrote this before all that happened. I was
terrified

that the books I’ve collected might
still be where they are, neglected,
stained with stale coffee by weary sons
too dry-eyed to read.

Carers now urge me to rhyme as
I did, as if I could, and loved ones
suffer,

pushing back their lives, putting up with
mine and their passive aggression
(as they know I would for them if
I could). Wishing I would die as

now they mouth ‘thanks’
to a carer, or a lover with a petrified smile,
trying to help. Let this do
for memories.