This is where I should be
in twenty twenty-four
thinking nineteen sixty-three.

Seven years old when old was last weeks Beano,
how dandy I looked in a bow tie and shorts.

But time as we all know
is put upon this Earth
to show us
the error of our ways.

By nineteen seventy-one I was gone,
a stevedore
boldly going into the hold and knowing
that this wouldn't end well.

We get things right and we get things wrong
and going on we learn to tell the difference.