Talking

FN
01 August, 2012

I just talk too much I talk too much

never shut up if you cut me in half

with a spade I’d continue to talk

for up to an hour from both ends

I’m more send than receive have never

had an unexpressed thought in my life

the path behind me is littered

with the hind legs of donkeys

and those times when you should just

shut up that’s when I talk even more

let it tumble out no matter how incriminating

there would be no need to tie me

to a chair and slap a rubber hose

into the palm of your hand for I will sing

like a canary at the politest enquiry,

tell you more about myself then you

ever wanted to know give up

my own children just for a chat in fact

I can guarantee the most hardened torturer

will soon be sewing up my mouth

to stop me telling him what I know

but I shall only rip my mouth open

spit out my broken teeth and carry on talking

through my tattered bleeding lips

and what I don’t know I don’t let worry me

for I never let lack of knowledge

get in the way of giving an opinion

why should I I’ve a habit of repeating myself

I’ve a habit of repeating myself

that was pretty obvious right

but you try talking non-stop and not

saying something pretty obvious

along the way and if you’re one

of those quiet people that

just looks then you’re just asking

for it without actually asking

if you see what I mean but

you can’t just stand and look

at each other right and if you’re

not going to say something

then I have to simple as that

simple as that so its your own fault

don’t glaze over when I’m talking

to you if you want this poem to stop

sometime in the next hour then

for God’s sake do something useful

go and fetch a spade.

ABOUT THE POEM Talking and thinking are what we do most in our lives. But unlike thinking, talking involves a listener; the desire to talk implicitly requires a willingness to listen too. But we all know those people with whom talking and listening fall out of balance, and the tyrannical talker’s mindset is realised here in Martin Figura’s marvellous monologue, which we enter and then find that we can never leave.

Figura is playing here with the very idea of a lyric poem—a heightened, controlled delivery of the feelings and worldview of an “I”, approximating introspection—and turning perception into prattle, the promise of poetic connection into poetic kidnapping. No punctuation is made available to the reader; after all, punctuation symbolises pauses, and there are none here. In real life, his talker’s imperialism of selfhood would be unbearable; here, though, both released and contained by poetic art, it serves as a brilliant comic riff on one of humankind’s greatest needs: to talk.


Martin Figura is a poet, photographer and performance artist based in Norwich, England. His books of verse include Whistle and Boring The Arse Off Young People. This winter he will be lecturing and performing in Delhi as part of a British Council-sponsored event.