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John Bartholomew Jan 2020
A little to the left
A little to the right
Hell I think I've seen all our sins
Looking beyond all what might have been

We lean a different way everyday in life
Depends on what has been giving you trouble and strife
I'll vote Labour one day and the Greens another, prey
It's all who has the best policies in all of what they say

My favourite actor, footballer or the car that I might drive next
All different decisions on what hasn't got me vexed
For our minds do blow on the direction of our inner winds
As a politician you were great now look at their dastardly sins

Again, a lean to the left when all is good and proud
A lean for right to get it off your mind, a shout now heard so loud

Whatever way you lean it's good to get it off your chest
For only you can decide which way to lean,
And do for you,
What really is for the best

JJB
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

Winston Churchill

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Stephen Covey

I've been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's a tower, and it's leaning. You look at it, but nothing happens, so then you look for someplace to get a sandwich.

Danny DeVito

If you are not leaning, no one will ever let you down.

Robert Anthony
John Bartholomew Jan 2020
Rummaging round the cupboard and the smell was getting rife
There he sat, proud as punch, that bear made by Steiff
1920's since he'd last had any play
Just sat in the corner looking benign, and that's where he'd stay
A move of his arm under that cardigan they'd had knit
Legs that dangle and now lose, let's get him fighting fit

Rotten to the core his fluff now to be rebuffed
A filler of modern type, now that's the kind of stuff
Eyes that hang on from the nimblest of thread
A cuddle and a kiss and this bear is ready for bed

A story he could tell of the Germans and how they did slaughter
Dropped in the corner by the village mayors daughter
Just left to rot until it's new owners undamaged his house
Feet now nibbled and left to rot, all by the local mouse

Love can come in many guises and this new life is so sweet
It's new owners place him proud with pictures for their tweet
Now a star of the telly on a show by BBC's The Repair Shop
Thanks Julie and Amanda,
You've given me a new life,
Please don't ever stop :)

Teddy Bear (in worn out wear)

JJB
John Bartholomew Dec 2019
Arriving like a flash of pure light,
A buzz,
A whiff,
A, look at me, I'm not here just as a gift

Momentous,
Crucial,
Pivotal,
Names I have plundered, on a Sunday morning call

Historical,
Far-reaching,
Consequential,
Fateful, all in a book, no author may dare claim

Evidenceless,
Timeless,
But always on trend
Oh Lord, how can it already be the end?

JJB
“Disbelief held me down inside my footsteps, making my body heavy but my heart wild.”― Markus Zusak
John Bartholomew Dec 2019
Whether black or blue, white or brown
We all find each other in these quirky little towns
Love is a thing of a thousand discussions
If your English, Irish, French or Russian
Language is but a barrier as long as you trust them
Supporting rival teams but still laugh at the same stuff on the telly
She cleans his boots, takes a sniff, although he's properly smelly
Then makes his favourite desert, mmm, ice cream and jelly
For we all have our differences, let just make it fit
No room on the sofa, let's laugh, chat, here's somewhere to sit
As we don't have enough time to hold such grudges,
tick-tock
tick-tock
Because, lets face it, we are all really, just odd socks.

JJB
John Bartholomew Dec 2019
I took you in
We laughed, got drunk, smoked some stuff that was wrong
Went gigging
Stole ***** that we shouldn't have been swigging
You dragged on some **** of a ten pack of stolen ciggies

You used me but I overlooked this at the time
Maybe I used you as well but this worked out just fine
A free ticket to the singer of your choice
Friend or carer, you wanted my company but not for their voice
You had no money but I didn't mind helping you out
As I never asked for a dime in return, I could have gone to a tout

So now...
It's thrown back in my face from a man with no cares
He swindles a friend he's known for over 20 years
Lives life like a failed rockstar as some new hearts he'll now tear

Good luck to those who he'll now push from his window sill
As two-facedness is a very bitter pill
He'll never learn as failure is an option we look back in hindsight
Looking over the edge from these choices
But from from how many lies and to fall from what height

Thinking back it was everyone else who has always paid
So that's it now my once dear friend
Time to call it a day

JJB
John Bartholomew Dec 2019
Sober.
It's an acquired state on mind.
A conscious
A quietness
A fondness
One may say, a heir achy, from you all.

Drunk.
Also an acquired state of mind.
A derailment
A letting go of it all
An unseen hurting inside

You don't know whats happened to that soul
An incident so unforgiving its led to this black hole
The judge in you thinks your above that sad being
But in their own self conscious, it's trouble they are fleeing

(Never judge what you never know)

JJB
John Bartholomew Dec 2019
Stubbed your toe just getting out of bed
It's gonna be, one of those days

Its cold and it's wet and its not getting better
Well that's what the weatherman just said

Slap that smile on and say hello to the world you just dread
This modern world of Tristan's and Justin's, I just don't fit as a Fred

Listening to country blues on the bus as the kids turn up their Kiss
Sometimes I'd like to answer with a smile and 5 finger clenched fist

At times I'd just like to be left alone in a world of my own dreams
Where Jesus could just hold me as his sunbeam

Do the others ever ask for 10 B&H and a packet of Rizla
Heck, I've been doing so since I was a kid, yeah

For this world of my own is a place of sanctuary where I'm safe
These thoughts are my own, my dreams, my own place

Shakespeare I think had the same ideas of worlds away
Where he often thought the same, always having just like me

One of the days

JJB
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