Tallb Stories: Prose, Poetry, Wisdom & Musings

By Matt Tallboy

A collection of poetry and musings from Matt Tallboy on topics as varied as poo, gun control, the environment, big decisions, golf, love, prostate cancer and paradoxes. The collection includes a book of proverbs which fit anywhere from idiot to oracle across the wisdom spectrum.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publicious Book Publishing
• Release date: Apr 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9781763519213

Matt Tallboy

Who is Matt Tallboy? Is he just a stupid ... nom de plume?He was a son before a father, a boy before an elder. A student, then a teacher, a reader, a writer. Then a student all over again.He looks on others kindly, as he knows,He owes his colour, rhythm and reason to those who've tried before him,The lessons he's learned, the chances he's taken, Opportunities missed, the souls he's kissed,All owed to them... and he remembers, he's been kissed, in return.He's a listener, a learner. Philosopher, philanthropist, raconteur. Golfer.He doesn't forget being hurt or the times of happiness. The rough and the smooth.He knows it's sometimes the little things that matter, and that life,Is the sum of all its parts, though it may come, in fits and starts.The high tide today, will be low tomorrow, but it has to leave its mark.He feels strongly, and thinks long and hard, about what matters.Because it matters.And, there's a left side and a right side to his complex, tiny brain.It feels the beauty, in cold, hard facts. Beholds the colours, the sounds, then adds, subtracts.And for every solution there is an almighty problem.This retired teacher of Mathematics is an author? Well, that's just so cute. He has the powers. He calculates those double meanings. And loves, that ... only ... mathematicians count.He knows, for every problem, every one of them,There is always an elegant, simple, worldly solution. Always.Just think about it, always. For always, think.

Book preview

The Tale of Haste

A Short, Tender Story of Hard Work, Desire, Loss and Marketing

I made haste.

I put it in a can.

I called it ‘haste’.

And soon it was there, on a supermarket shelf.

But maybe, it wasn’t positioned quite right.

Not in the middle, not right for the discerning shopper’s eye.

It didn’t sell.

So, I marketed haste.

I made haste an ad.

It was quite expensive to make haste such a long, slow commercial.

But the pony-tailed marketing guru used words like ‘feasibility study’ and ‘global transfer impaction’ to explain that’s just what was needed.

Bright colours were put on the can.

Lots of my hard-earned hole-digging money was paid out to put a grinning, blue dog on the label.

Mummy, buy me that now!

Then, we did a big deal with the shops to place it better on the shelves.

It all cost me an easy-go fortune, my life savings.

In a ‘buy-anything-world’ it was the kind of money you would part with, for the winning bid in the auction of Elvis Presley’s last cheeseburger.

But that’s okay, having taken decisive action on haste, I knew I could repent in leisure.

And there it was, looking great and right where everyone with instant money could clearly see it.

But the buyers still rushed by. They were all on their phones, connecting. Some were gulping down strong coffee in weak, plastic cups. They hurried off to their cars, with wide, pierced children, bags full of sugar disguised as food and bananas wrapped in plastic.

But none of them had my haste. I should have known haste is the last thing these people needed.

My time and money had been wasted. I had actually made haste for these shallow people.

Despondent, I drove home, slowly. There was no choice. The traffic in the new, billion-dollar tunnel was moving like a Boxing Day carpark.

Then, I saw something to give me cheer.

An attractive young woman in the car next to me had some of my haste in a can. She seemed to be studying it carefully before she opened it slowly. She appeared to be savouring the moment. She was really liking it and her pleasure was incredibly beautiful to me.

‘Do me slowly,’ the can urged.

This Goddess of all traffic jams happily obliged by rubbing the can across her forehead. Then her neck was given the same treatment. Tilting her head back, she seemed to soak in her own guilty, selfish pleasure. She closed her eyes and held the can under her nose, taking her sweet time to breathe in haste’s delicate, subtle, lingering bouquet.

Watching, I gulped heavily as she dragged her fingers slowly through her thick auburn hair.

Then came the moment I needed.

As if in slow motion, she turned her head towards me, and our eyes met.

I was trying for the double-O-seven smile, but it may have just come across the tunnel lanes as awkward. Now desperate for my look to stay outside the creepy spectrum (as if I’d been watching her) I quickly held up a can of my haste to her.

She smiled her smile and nodded to me. It was a wonderful smile and, dare I say, the nod was very much like … approval.

We air-clinked our tin flutes of haste.

Success.

My heart beat faster as I yearned for her gentle touch, just before she inched her carmine red Porsche 718 Cayman GTS forward and drove out of my pathetic life.

She was gone.

Gone.

She stopped again just one car ahead, beside a lop-sided bomb driven by man with a very fat head, quite an unhattable one, as perceived from behind.

But, the thought of her hands wrapped lovingly around my haste, her beautiful smile, her (assumed) long legs, and her plunging, seat-belted cleavage gave me hope.

And I enjoyed that feeling of hope, enough to think …

I could give hope to lots of people.

People need hope, they really need it. We all really need it.

Like dough, hope is what we need.

I’m determined to learn from all the mistakes I made making haste.

I’ll have to borrow money.

It’s going into a bottle this time.

Hope, in a bottle.

A bottle full of hope.

‘The bottle of hope is never half empty.’

Acid Soap, Hasten the Paradox Poetry

I have HOPE. In a bottle, two hundred mLs of hope.

But I keep the lid on that one in case it tastes like acid soap.

So the cork stays stopped in tight, lest I let a genie out,

And I turn out quite hopeless when the magic mucks me all about.

It never will get opened, this sad bottle of my dreams.

And now my life is vanishing; hope is picking at my seams.

Those visions of my wild-eyed youth, used to be a-plenty.

Now my bottle of shiny hope, just seems to be half empty.

I have WILLPOWER, two dozen jars, I couldn’t stop at one.

And if I can get though half of these, I’ll feel like I am done.

But once I get to twelve, eighteen’s only half again,

Now with not many left, would I just pour them down the drain?

I’m feeling worse for wear but they really are quite more-ish.

And really, would I stop now, with the number left at only four-ish?

Soon, the lot completely gone, quickly like a theft.

And I’m completely full of willpower. I have no willpower left.

I got STUBBORN. They pushed me to drink the whole pint of it, but I had to disagree.

And even if I say so myself, ‘Mr Flexible’ is me.

If you want to argue, take it up with some other guy.

I say I’m easy-going, with many reasons why.

But I won’t even have a half, bait me any time,

For me; just lime ‘n soda. (But only use fresh lime.)

We are what we drink! … is logic not-so-strange,

And I simply won’t be stubborn, on this I will not change.

I’m buying shares in NOTHING, I mean the number nought.

Profits should balance losses is what I’ve always thought.

But there’s so much more to zero, this score that no-one wants.

It’s not just the hole in the doughnut, it’s the whole doughnut, as seen by math-savants.

If, in the product you put zero you’re back to nothing, which is like before you started.

And as one, we all end up at zero, when we join the dear departed.

Nought’s the change you get from gambling, if you’re the fevered betting kind,

I’m crunching all the numbers … with nothing on my mind.

I made HASTE,