Water Worker

Of course one does doubt the capability of one’s memory

Perhaps focussing too too sharply on the forgetfulness

Or just needing a wee bit more time to remember

Where time wasn’t ever required, not in the past

Yesterday, through half of this low-lying county

The fields were flooded

The roads had standing water

Yet who will remember how the land was reclaimed

Who, in the future, will be able to organise the drainage

And who might play a role in that useful purpose

Of course one doesn’t doubt about one’s ability to help

Nor does one wish to be sidelined, or to be kept out of the way

Even if it is for the best, the best for everyone else that is

In which case maybe it is for the best to forget about one’s past

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Stakeholder

I have not been forced to change

For the last fifteen years or so I have been indulged

First at college, then with family, also in my workplace

If there has been change, and I think there has

Then the force for change has come from within

Or from what I have extracted from my environment

Yet I don’t recall setting out to change

Rather to learn, to experience, to feel, to think

And what of all that inexplicable labour

What rewards are in my mind, my body, my spirit, my soul

Could I now write about how good it feels to write

Could I now think about how good it feels to think

Could I now say with any certainty

That this journey was the pathway to have taken

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Foolishness

So why do people sell me programs which require me to build a habit

Is it because they know that I don’t have the wherewithal to build a habit

Have they run my past life’s data through their computers, and concluded

Quite rightly, that I don’t have that what is needed to build a habit

In fact it is my opinion that not many people do have this faculty

I do further believe that my absent-minded laziness is not unusual

Indeed I would say that the ability to be distracted is rife in my community

And I think that always was the case, even as children we didn’t often listen

So why don’t the sellers change tack

And move away from an habit building business

You might well ask, just as in the past we asked about the snake oil sellers

Of course if the seller, can without doubt, blame the buyers for failure

Then has he not found the holy grail, money for old rope comes to mind

Though this time the buyer’s, himself or herself, have provided the rope

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Dingy Days

That sunrise, that sunset, those winds across the beaches

That light, that dark, those most forgetful times of mourning

The singer, the songwriter, the lyricist par-excellence 

One night and one day there were many made-up stories

One high-life, one low-life, one crowd of delinquents in between

Then, when the door was opened, when the stairs were climbed

That card, that lighthouse, that must be for Plymouth Sound

That book, that meditation, that oh so so wanting just to be

The sear, the searcher, the one reaching out for all what is

One grain of sand, one boat with paddles, one day doing escape

One ebb tide, one flo tide, one road right alongside the estuary

When the way is open, when the way is closed, still no one passes by

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A Family Affair

I drive beside the moribund silver birch

Sullied by diesel fumes and dirty weather

Yet the November light is not without light

Indeed the blue skies reflect the sparseness

There is a calm to the morning, also to my mind

Yet, by the time I reach the Inn of choice

The Christmas lunches are in full volume flow

I order a pot of tea with sticky toffee pudding

Which arrives in a large bowl swimming with sauce

Heaven knows the sugar content; which would not

Please my partner, or my daughter, or my doctor

Fortunately my son would say enjoy yourself dad

You deserve it

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