Old Friends

There's a certain type of old, childhood friend, isn't there, who's so familiar to you that you can predict nearly everything they're going to say and do. But that's kind of all right, as just their presence alone reminds you fondly of your youth, when every day was excitingly unpredictable.

Pink Floyd, I recall, once wrote a piece called 'Comfortably Numb', but this one's called 'Comfortably Bored'. I wrote it in my head in bed last night - two places where I write many of my poems.

Comfortably Bored

You really bored me with your drunken talk
Of God and Kant and Wittgenstein,
Of long weekends in Crete and crap Greek wine,
Of kidney problems and the parlous state
Of heart, lungs, liver, bowels and prostate,
Of lack of sex and too much sodding telly,
Of shrinking brain cells and a widening belly,
Of Natalie on Strictly, of divorce,
Of how you should have backed that bloody horse.

You really bored me, but I heard you out.
Even when you started to rant and shout
I still half-listened (also spent some time
Tinkering with this poem and its rhyme),
For this is how old friends fill up their days:
Boring each other in comfortable ways.