My thoughts appear as on a
Conveyor belt in front of me.
I sit some distance from them
And watch them pass.
I am allowed to choose which ones to
Discard
And which to pick off the track to examine
At my leisure.
In my own time.

The same old thoughts go around and around
Like suitcases abandoned at the airport carousel.
I leave those battered, tattered old cases.
I am managing very well without their contents.
I like to travel light.

September morning and the blush pink of a child's eyelid
layers
With soft Wedgewood blue
And a silvery white.
Feathery treetops shiver in the light breeze
And there is a delicious chill in the air.
Contrails break apart in slow motion
Resting on the daybreak's skyline.

A blackbird hops across the dewy grass
To take his morning slice of stale bread.
Rose petals crimped and heavy wait
Patiently to be dried in the pastel sun.

There is no sadness as the summer slips by;
Just memories of freshly mown grass
On parish fields, of light, of warmth,
Of sea and country walks
Sweetening, like apples
In a sand box.

Sometimes the searing sharpness of cynicism is required;
The acid, eye -watering lemon zest of fact
Piercing
The soft underbelly
Of platitudes, niceties, clichés, pleasantries and delusions.
The sweet smile offset by the glint in the eye,
The raise of an eyebrow or the hint of a frown
Won't do it.

Slivers of sycophancy stick in the teeth
And globules of gratuitous grovelling make one gag.
Swimming in warm soapsuds makes the skin shrivel
And the body longs for the cold shock of sea and salt.

Slick smoothness sickens like melting ice cream
and pretty politeness can seem
Pretty pointless
In the icy blast of a down turn.
Whipped up enthusiasm is just that -
A lot of hot air.

Oil the wheels, grease the palm, slick back the hair,
Stick on the smile, fix the grin, paint the slap.
Nothing sounds too well held in place;
All ready to slide off, leaving  the raw expression of bewilderment
In the face of reality

I do have a boat.
A poor  leaky thing it is
With a wonky rudder
And a quivering sail.
In fair weather it takes me where I want to go,
But when the storm breaks
I cling to the mast, rising to the crest of each new wave
And plummeting to the depths
To arrive in a new place with the lull.

One morning I heard a glorious song;
A full throated trilling
With the sweetest falling note.
I searched the trees and found a robin
Engulfed by the song;
His whole body puffing and swelling with each note.
His tiny beak seemed inadequate
For such piercing purity.
He was abandoned to the sound that occupied his tiny frame
And seemed to come not of him, but through him.
Then it ceased.

Great ships pass by
With engines that cut through the waves leaving white-tipped furrows,
All barren ploughing; no wind in their sails, but engines powering
Relentlessly forward
And back across the waves
With souls oblivious to the mighty mountains and the
Dreadful depths.

Cut through, forge forward to more ocean
Or more of the same.
Over the top go the great ships
Like  grand dams brushing away
The hoi polloi.
A flurry of exquisite cut and sparkling ore
Sweeping through
But surface dusting only.
No highs and lows, no bobbing,
No clinging to the mast
No robin.

Come! Swim with me in the shallow waters
Feel froth and grit compete between your toes.
Come! Mess about and splash without a thought to
The 'shoulds' and 'oughts' , the tensions and the woes.
It's busy here and lively at the sea's rim;
Old folk dip and children come to play.
The foam is soapier at the sea's brim.
Come! Let us wash all traces of the grey.

Come ! Deeper now. Let's swim in calmer water;
Feel depth's support and lie along its back.
Beyond you is the deepest, darkest ocean:
We know it's there, we smell its salty breath.
It's awful in its dreadful, fatal power
That emulates the ebb of life - and death