Time's tight leash restrains ever more:
Youth runs without looking,
Adulthood takes in the views but not the meanings,
Parenthood siezes your social life and shakes it like a rattle;
A head-spinning temporal trauma
Leaving a void filled by nostalgia
- the middle aged man's worst enemy -
Sunny dazed days of drinking
In heavenly beer gardens,
Laughing without thinking.
But time yanks the leash,
Drags you back into today,
This hour, this minute,
To the ***** diaper
And your soiled hand.

I love you.
I have to,
I want to,
I need to,
I'm your dad,
It's my duty
And my honour.
I thought you felt the same,
So imagine my shame
After running through pouring rain
To save you from the horror,
The anxiety and dread
Of your first day in school,
To find you smiling and enthralled,
At the after-school club
You weren't meant to attend,
And didn't want to be saved from
By your loving dad!
So I say, my darling daughter,
Enjoy it all:
9 to 3,
September to July,
2019 for the rest of your life.
I love you.

Such distant voices,
Like echoes from a recent past,
Calling over rickety field fences
Gently swaying the flourishing corn,
Diminishing as it nourishes,
So that the hearer only hears
A ghostly murmur and not the cheers.

A forgiving tree draws tepid water
From its pitifully small patch of earth
Set amidst a barren desert of asphalt.
Its indignity is furthered still
As its leaves drop, not on the floor,
But on the bonnet of my Ford.

Has anyone seen my wallet?
I left it on the roof of my car
And drove my Christmas drive.
If you find it you can keep it:
I'm moving on.
Driving license,
A ton of reciepts,
Ten Euro note,
Maybe eight pounds cash
And a book of stamps.
Mostly a reminder of a dreary life,
Heavy, not with cash but ****** expenditure.

Go ahead, steal my ID,
Who'd want to be me?
Not I!
But, drawing a parallel
Between my wallet and I,
Deep in a quagmire,
Weathered by winter,
Waiting to be found.
Not very subtle I know,
But here's my rebuttal:
A seemingly tough exterior,
Vulnerable to stormy weather,
Stitching that will fail the test of time,
Spilling out its contents,
Laying bear all it once held in.

But if not found presently,
Maybe in time it will be,
And be of some passing interest
To some far off future finder,
Who'll wonder for a second who I was,
And ask, "how did it get lost?"
And "what became of those two children in the photo?"
And "what the hell was diesel anyway?"