Northern Lights
I know for a fact thanks
to Smash Hits or Top of the Pops magazine
that in the mid-90s Peter Andre
would shower at least three times a day.
From time to time this knowledge
(and most of all its clarity)
has been known to grip me with
a momentary anguish.
It’s always been a dream of mine
to see the Aurora Borealis.
When I told my friend Sebastian this
five or something years ago he said
‘But you have – don’t you remember?
One night on the beach in North Berwick –
it was the most amazing thing –
I can’t believe you don’t remember’
but I don’t. I’ve been jogging
in the evenings again lately.
All I’ve captured so far is
space and the odd faint star
then I come home, shower
make and eat my dinner
all the while looking for
the latest memes on Facebook.
Who am I to prioritise
the objects of my experience?
At least three showers a day
is at least one too many.
Calum Rodger is a Glasgow-based poet working in print, performance and digital media. His pamphlets Know Yr Stuff: Poems on Hedonism and Glasgow Flourishes are published by Tapsalteerie, and he performed his show Rock, Star, North. – a poetic travelogue set in the Grand Theft Auto V universe – with Flint & Pitch in 2017. He is Co-Director of the Scottish Universities’ International Summer School and completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow on ‘avant-gardener’ Ian Hamilton Finlay.