Counterbalance

On this day:

When I have seen a mass of knowledge
Being used
To make some significant systematic mistakes
I am left to wonder
Is this part of the change process
Is this what happens when we move in haste

I watched the invalid
With his wheeled walking frame
He climbed two steps with ease
He managed without the need
Of the kindly offered assistance
I was gladdened by things
Well thought out
And put into use to good effect

Charles said to come here
To this pub in the village
Both he, and his mother recommend it highly
Earlier today, this morning in fact, his father said
“The fried breakfast is on lad”
“Tea and toast will only be a few minutes”

Is this what happens
When the pressure is off
When I eat vegetarian food and drink real ale
As if common sense
Could, or should, return
To the nonsense of corporate business

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Ley Arms, Kenn

Another hostelry, with food and fine Otter ale
Outside a stream flows under the arched bridge
Inside a fire glows in front of the comfortable settee

It might take a while
To get used to beer without a head
But all else is at hand, at ease

You might not believe this next bit
But on this day of change, on this day of newness
I have ordered vegetable curry, with rice not chips

The Monet print shows a lady in the garden
Collecting flower-cuttings for her basket
This could be you my love, if we let the Albertine roses have their day

True in Lincolnshire we do not have that same sun
Which Cezanne or his Fellow impressionists
Carved into the artistic cosmos for perpetuity

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Dancers Wisdom

Caution is the watchword
Listen to the Diaghileff dancing star
Beware that exposure to new experience
Can filter out the magic of past memories

Each day your new favourite photograph
Puts a shade or a tint on yesterdays numero uno
Each day your new life places a formaldehyde cover
Over those bodies that one night pressed effortlessly together

Your stance
Should it have surprised me
To see no more dance; should it have
Stopped me dead in my tracks

That day, for what the image is worth
I framed your words, became your number one fan
Once home I pulled back the dust cloths; recovered
I lay down again on the receptive bed where we had lain together

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A500/M6 Junction

Cars and lorries stream past

Their noise disrupts my enjoyment

Of the concert on the classical radio station

This is not a salubrious lay-by

Old scaffolding poles hold up the canvas canopy

At the hot & cold roadside greasy spoon

There is though no shortage of clientele

Compounding my belief in that old saying

That to be a success in catering, it is: location, location, location

Whether it be the black suited businessman

Or the more down to earth steel toe-cap construction chap

It is the bacon sandwich which today is the wealth creator

But it is not, I guess, bacon from the local Staffordshire pot-bellied pig

More likely it is bought in bulk, from the purveyors who travel

In and among the all-day-passing black marketeers

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Last Look (Without Words)

Silhouette in the shadows

All those stymied

Doubt filled bones of distrust

Home for the dust motes in the cobwebs

Easily led to those disaffected

And unattested thoughts on the bedstead

The shadow, and the silhouette

Are mere motor-memories now

It is that time of clearer light

Becoming necessary to write the final chapter

The attempt for capture is over

The exodus finally delivered the sun

The rest of us must go on

Transcending the transference

Into the silence

The silent silhouette

The silent shadow

The silence which echoes

To the loss of those disaffected

To the cost of those unattested

And to that imposter, of the one neglected

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