We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Defence of Jack Torrance

from Loudmouth: Page and Pub Poems by Michael Botur

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

      $1 NZD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

The troubled writer loses his mind after midnight.

lyrics

Defence of
Jack Torrance

Drinking stinging piss; devouring
The Shining in the soundless hour
between 3 and 4 in the morning, hour of black gaps,
hour adrift and maddening, saltwater, no sign of shore.
I’ve renounced sober. I fear the landfall of dawn
Shuddering as rum and a found-it-in-the-fridge juice mix
burns the throat, each sugarliquor sip is a pinch.
Sickened with each slurp, I tip my cup
to narcissist Jack Torrance, my idol, my guy,
two bros berserk at a.m. 3.49
I drink to his tragic logic in a boozed book binge
I listen and forgive his sins
’cause he’s my bro-tagonist, fellow scribe, likeminded,
likes to imbibe.
My bud instructs how to get fucked-up while he cuts through a writer’s block blizzard. Kids and wife creep
past as we typewrite, walking on ice.



Some of us can’t handle stress, we bend til we snap,
I agree with Jack,
we’re so on-edge, so insomniac,
we’ll attack interrupters with an axe
for a little bliss. We all fall from innocence on the piss.
I turn pages, sip and wince, enthralled as Jack hacks
through snowdrifts. Miserable, suicidal,
crushed by that unfinished novel,
we hear the void call

And I too, when depressed, when pricked with unrest
crave a silent missus and kids. I’d kill for some kip
I suck another gut-punch rum-swig
And think of demonic inklings followed to extremity,
think guilty pleas and degrees
of culpability. Jack smashes his antagonists
with a mallet. Flip a page. Gotta hear a man out.
Somethin musta drove him to it.
He’s misunderstood, driven insane, crazed, made awake.
Gotta have a little empathy,
he could be you or me in the hour after three,
Asking only some privacy and sleep. Anxious, fragile.
Leave him be, he’s a ship in a bottle you don’t wanna rattle

credits

from Loudmouth: Page and Pub Poems, released March 7, 2021

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Michael Botur image

Michael Botur Whangarei, New Zealand

Michael Botur is a New Zealand poet and fiction writer of European heritage. He is author of ten books and has won a bunch of bigshot writing awards.
'Loudmouth: Page and Pub Poems' collects 15 years of spoken word verse from one of NZ's most dynamic young poets. Perfect for anyone who loves the personal mixed w the political, a little bit of hip hop and plenty of attitude.
www.nzshortstories.com ... more

contact / help

Contact Michael Botur

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Michael Botur, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Seafood Sam joins the show to discuss his newest album, " Standing On Giant Shoulders".
listen now