You sat there, sure of your part in this play.
Smirked as he was dragged away,
Arms flailing, legs kicking and mouth frothing
As countless robotic guards carried him aloft.

A charade of a parade.

He was off to the unknown,
His life out of control,
Destiny scattered to the wind.

And so, it was was with such ease
That you released a butterfly-effect rumour
That gathered momentum
Causing chaos beyond your darkest hopes.

Where is he now?
In some granite and iron cell?
Living on a bread and water diet?
You do not know.
You do not care.

You stole the life you craved,
His Human Rights you waived
Not a moment's thought
Of this man's despair do you give.

When the torrent was weathered
A gentle bobbing on the calmest river followed
Where quenched fresh sunlight nurtured
A navigable peaceful joyous course.
But, as the first bend in the river approached,
The river's passenger sensed the current's change
No longer the bob-bob-bobbing of nursery rhymes,
Instead, ahead, a threatening rumble of waters deep and heavy
Where many a previous daydream had floundered.

There is art
That touches on our brief existence.
Art so refined,
So naturally attuned to
Life, Existence, Experience and Death
That Explanation is a waste of  words.
To me, it is song:
Beethoven's 9th
Songs For Drella
O Superman
God Only Knows
Underneath The Weeping Willow.
All hyper human,
Super surreal masterpieces
Beyond my evaluation.
So, thank you composers.

Some day
SOMEONE
May come across
THIS.
But until then,
There is
YOU.
And you will
NOT DO
So please,
Put this
MESSAGE
Back where you
Found it.

It sits unsquare
Made of tumoured granite
In a dip on a peak
Overlooking a lush green carpeted landscape.

Hurriedly hewn by many hands,
And thrown up by makeshift stoneshifters,
It balances on large pebbles
Held together by Play-Doh mortar.

It is, for all its aesthetic faults,
A resilient testimony
To a family's love
And to a proud identity.

It always amused me,
How no one in the building
Had neither the time nor the inclination
To change that default ringtone...
That harbinger of problems upon problems.
It amuses me more that,
After a break and a change,
I find that default ringtone
Still echoes down the corridors,
Like incidental music in a bad horror
And how I still snap into action mode
Each time I hear that default ringtone,
How I enter crisis management mode
Each time I hear that default ringtone,
How I brace myself for bad news
Each time I hear that default ringtone.
What a thing the mind is!
Impressions made upon it,
Triggered by a catchy default ringtone!

Funny
Honey
Money
Bunny
Sunny
Dummy
Chummy
Mummy
Crummy
Orange
..­.****.

Some seize on death,
Just as they seized on a siblings' toy,
They want it for themselves.
No one else should possess it;
It must be about them
And the validating sympathy that it elicits.
    
But, ultimately, which is sadder?
The death itself?
Or...
The looting of grief?

My poor nest I must address:
Fed up with poor nights' sleep,
Ending up, ironically, with crow's feet
It's not ideal in mating season
I'll demolish this nest for that reason.

An unorthopaedic mess of a nest
Is my rickety pokey ***** bed.
However, one solution in the offing:
A mail order memory foam mattress
That I could return before migration.

A hundred ***** dusty bleary-eyed windows open
As a deadly-dull town awakens
Unready and unwilling to take on another new day.
Each indolent inhabitant wishing away each minute, hour and day
Banishing any boy or girl who talks of "getting away".
Yes, a sad sullen town of little ambition,
Happy in its unhappiness,
Disembarks on another week
Allowing the woeful wintry weather to dictate its motivation
Glory be then, the rain that seems to fall perpetually
On the unglistening slate-grey slated roofs
That keep out the rain
But not the season's strong sickly grip.
To end at the ending?
Yes, let's,
This town is life's last stop
The end of a long long line
A lovely place to relax and whine.

Sat alone in my car
High above the forest line,
My Sat Nav tells me:
"Make a U-Turn when possible"
(Funny how a soulless voice
Can give the perfect advice).

I feel so far from home:
I'm a cheap Chinese lantern
Drifting on the merest wind.
Am I near my destination?
I do not know...
Which way did the wind blow?

Visual heaven,
Swirls all above me,
Moons and stars whisked into one.
Who is stirring the night sky
Whilst I battle on?

Chaos both high and low,
Danger here on the ground
Serene safety high above.
A contrast not lost on me.
Do I battle on?

An inviting heavenly white
A ****** red stained green
An ache in my chest
My senses fading.
Is this death I feel?

A luckless boy
With a disc camera
Chases a picture of beauty.
A picture of his favourite bird:
The Song Thrush.

This boy feels as free
As the bird he seeks.
This boy sings his own song
Unaware of a bigger chorus
That will, one day soon,
Drown out his naïve tune.

Still, with tail up,
He chases that elusive bird
With a camera he does not understand
On a film he will never develop.

But he is lost in the moment,
Skulking and flitting
From one place to the next
Trying quietly (but loudly)
Not to startle the Song Thrush
As it whistles its timeless song.

No need to worry about
My culture
My language
My identity
There is no threat to my ethnicity.
My mother tongue is dominant,
The cultural lingua franca on each continent.
But at what cost, this monoglot monopoly?
Maybe I unknowingly lack empathy?
Do not understand that other languages need to breath.
Other cultures need the space.
Other identities need support.
That they face existential threats.
That my neighbours feel squeezed.
But what can I do when I am surprised
Each and every time when I am told
That not everyone speaks the English at home?

These lines should allude to
My feelings at this present time.
So, filters off,
Stick to a simple structure,
No fancy words
To polish turds.
Let's drop the contrived rhyme
Truth-telling isn't a crime,
So here goes...
Life gets dull post-40
And, like my body fat content,
Time is spiralling out of control.

The mystery stopped
When the apple dropped:
A simple, natural act
Of a fundamental law,
That keeps our feet on the ground,
Was written down
To little effect
On our state of being.
A pointless endeavour?
I think not,
A great leap of imagination
That escaped the pull of limitation
And opened the door to
Endless fascination.

A cloud formation
Never to be repeated
Farewell T Rex cloud.

Cotton candy mystery,
A fellow with no history.
Sugar cane disaster,
An apprentice with no master.
What befell the sickly boy
When he lost his favourite toy?

Life is not a Program.
GOTO Hell
Syntax Error
Back
Ctrl Alt Delete
Options
Restart

Star jump
Slide to a bump
Mini Jeep driving
Forever striving
To win a race
Tie your shoelace
Stay on your feet
You won't be beat
Determination
No hesitation
Single-minded
Laser-guided
You won't conform
Not one for Unicorns
Find your voice
Beat the boys
You'll sprint through life
Overcome strife
Become resilient
Just be brilliant.
But, just for now,
No need to wow
I realise
I idealise
So go wild
Be a child
You know you oughta
My darling daughter ;-)

My weekly downhill drive past your flat
And your static life in your static flat
Briefly synchronise courtesy of your mirror's angle,
Opening a brief view into your lonely life:
Your brown vintage sofa
With it's vintage orange cushions,
Your formica TV dinner table.
A retro combo,
Reminding me of the set of a 70s sitcom
Minus the laughs.
Yes, it's a terrible thing
That I can't help but gaze
At that speedy reflection
Of your Thursday nights
Above your anachronistic Everything shop;
The shop *** museum that you've curated
For forty years or more.

To say you are a Junior Doctor
Would be an understatement.
To say you are fit to practice
Would be irresponsible.
Your bedside manner
Leaves a lot to be desired.
You break your Hippocratic oath
At the drop of a hat.
You hand out prescriptions for Calpol
Like it's going out of fashion.
You tell me to take some pills
For the slighest of chills.
You take my temperature
And tell me I'm fine
When the reading says just 29.
When you check out my heart
You say it goes:
Ba-Boom Ba-Boom Ba-Boom Ba-Boom.
But I'll cut you some slack,
You may seem like a Quack,
But if I insist on a free medical
Then I shouldn't expect expertise
From a Doctor aged but 3.

You grow wild yet reverential
Your bowed white heads
Gathered in prayer groups
Dotting the well-kept lawn of the dead.

Do the residents tend to you?
Do their icy-white greenfingers
- reanimated by the winter moon -
Awaken you with a deathly touch?

River water flows
Quenches imagination
On scorched riverbank

You need 20/20 vision
To focus on the good in 2018.
But don't lose faith,
2019 might surprise,
Positive rises and positive demises:
Let's not name names
(If I did, there'd be no surprises!)

I saw a photo of you yesterday of granular colour
Fading fast, poor in quality.
Hurriedly taken, poorly processed:
It was one I'd never seen.

A second glance made me pause.
You were not quite as I recall:
Strange, that I would forget details;
Laugh lines here and there, and the sheer whiteness of your hair.

My own memory's snapshot is a composite.
A mish-mash of impressions developed by my mind,
Fading fast as time goes by.

Such a people person,
Such a kind person,
Such a loving person,
Such a sociable person
A well loved person.
Yet, not a curious person.
No questions asked of others,
No intrigue as to world affairs,
No who, what, where or when
Of matters outside of family.
You nurtured me,
Protected me,
Literally saved me once,
Yet my curiosity has no bounds.
I waste time in tangents,
Learn a lot about nothing,
Shoe horn facts into conversation.
Yet you are always content,
Like a lioness watching her cubs.
Lionesses' weights can vary from 150kg to 250kg and may give birth to four cubs at a time.

"Follow your follower,
That's how Twitter works!"
That's what she told me.
Little wonder then, that
Social Media gets no one anywhere:
Fertile ground for circular arguments,
A deafening echo chamber,
Where debate is often choked at birth.