Performance: 'Can't Be Bovvered' live at Festival 23

Can’t Be Bovvered

Of course it’s difficult! That’s the whole point, tell me something I don’t know, if it was easy everybody would do it, you CAN’T, that is the point of hard and difficult things. They are hard and difficult. What is the point of doing something easy? What is easy? Is it easy being a CAN’T? Or a bank robber or a pilot or a heroin addict or a lion tamer or a millionaire? Is it easy to be honest? Is it easy to be first? Anything worth doing is hard and worth doing really hard and for hours and every day until you have it down and you have done it the best you CAN otherwise it’s pointless doing it, you CAN’T. Even being a total CAN’T takes hard work, hours of dedication and you should know that, you CAN’T. Every day you are shown evidence against being a CAN’T but every day you persist in being a total CAN’T, you lie there in your hot little bed planning what you CAN’T do or CAN’T say, planning where you can't go...

If CAN’T's like you had your own way no books, songs or paintings would ever be completed because it might be a wee bit of work. Hello my name is Jimi Hend… dunt matta… Hello my name is Ludwig van Bee… bovvered. May as well stay in bed picking your nose and wiping it off on the sheets because it dunt matta wotevaaa, CAN’T be bovvered, CAN’T be bovvvered… I had a dream… yeah woteva. Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art… CAN’T be bovvered. If it was left up to you churches would be left half built and Neil Armstrong would be still on the moon waiting for a ride home and people would die in the middle of CAN’T be bovvered brain surgery and Jesus Christ would be left hanging there from one hand because it was a bit hard and it took a bit of energy to get the nail in through the palm of the other one, might as well leave it, just leave the son of God dangling by one arm, you CAN’T, now look the son of God just snapped at the ankles, headbutted his old dear and bloodied her nose because you, you sloppy CAN’T, you didn’t even hammer that one in properly, you have a break, go on, dunt matta, dunk your Kit Kat.

CAN’T be bovvered going to galleries or reading books, dunt matta, you want pizza and lots of telly, you shit what you are fed… telly about telly, footage of fat ugly people bickering and scoffing pizza, you are watching yourself on telly, you CAN’T. How much imagination must it take to convince yourself that anything difficult, anything that takes a bit of thought or work must be avoided and ignored until someone on telly tells you it’s kinda like pizza and maybe worth checking out? Once upon a time when you were a baby CAN’T it was very hard, very difficult to learn to stand and then to walk and even a CAN’T like you managed that… then it was hard and difficult to learn to speak CAN’T, and you speak CAN’T fluently, like it must be your first language. Then it was very hard, very difficult to learn to read and to write, to build ideas, to understand theories, histories and create things, and that’s where CAN’T’s like you stop whilst the rest of the world evolves and involves in spite of itself… in spite of you, you CAN’T. Outside it’s filthy with life, with new ideas and a curiosity of how the world works and spins with the weight of thinking, questioning, the perfection of gifts and talents and finding fantastic ways to communicate dreams and visions, it’s called seeing things through, you CAN’T, it’s called being awake you CAN'T and its called being alive, you CAN’T.

Paint a church ceiling? Paint a church ceiling, you sure? Oooooh, that will be very very hard, very very difficult, I wouldn’t bovver if I was you, wotevaaa, your name is, ermmm, Michelangelo… woteva, Sistine Chapel… dunt matta… woteva… CAN can can can can can can can can can can can… you CAN’T.

YOU. CAN.

(c) Salena Godden

'Can't Be Bovvered' by Salena Godden

youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AENTcLH1q7A

Live performance for The Cosmic Trigger Cabaret at Festival 23

Filmed with thanks to Adam Baker - July 23rd 2016

Published in 'Fishing In The Aftermath Poems 1994-2014' by Burning Eye Books

Please visit our new online store, Salena’s Bookshoppe: http://salenagodden.bigcartel.com

GIGS, FESTIVALS AND PARTIES

August 19th:  Farmopolis, Greenwich Festival 

August 20th: Margate Bookie  LitFestival

August 25th:  Verse Clique, The Poetry Club, Glasgow

August 26th: Neu Reekie, Edinburgh International Book Festival

September 2-4th: Churchtown, Cornwall

September 16th: The Beacon, Hastings

September 30th: Wordlife launch, Rich Mix, London

October 7th: Cheltenham Literary Festival

October 12-15: Durham Literary Festival

October 19th: Manchester Literary Festival

October 21st: ArchWay With Words Festival supporting Suzi Quatro