When I was young I wasn’t taught
How poems are written using thought
I have no idea what the poetic terms mean
And lines should be worked until pristine

Alliteration, Anapest, Assonance, Blank verse
Too much for the mind to traverse
Tercet, Trochee, Refrain and stanza line
Apparently free verse means lines don’t rhyme

I feel it’s all a bit clinical and cool
And poetry shouldn’t follow a written rule
It’s not something than can be planned
Like an essay written on demand

Poetry is love, lost and found
It’s anger, regret, a human battleground
It’s all of you, written down on a blank page
It’s grief, laughter, hope and rage

Poetry is a flow of all your fears
Written with ink of salted tears
And emotions tumble into cyber space
Searching for a connection, they cannot trace

Every poet travels the downward dip
Of the emotional power trip
Feels the soul of the written word
That bleeds more freely than the cut of a sword

Existing in a spinning circle
Of washed up wanted dreams
Living in this surreal of awful
As nightmares exhale primal screams

Ripping up the wasted minutes
Like trash discarded in the bin
Barely glimpsed, as the door shuts
Moments of what could have been

Life becomes a faded hue
In this dazzling world of wonder
You search for what you once knew
Before infant dreams were torn asunder

But enchanted ever afters
Live only in childhood play
They dissolve in children’s laughter
As age slowly melts the magic away

But I want to find the magic spell to say
Which will bring the enchantments back
So I can believe, before I’m old and grey
That ever afters can be a happy fact

I recently bought an amazing fad
A car that thinks. Wow, how amazing is that?
So I get it home and open up the instruction pad
Flick through pages covering every language format
Finally, I found the paragraph for me. Number one.
What a fantastic light show, as I turn on the key
Three sweaty hours later and I am done.
I soon realised to read the rest you need a degree
So I gave up on instructions after ten
I know best, and soon destinations are programmed in.
So here we go, first visit, to pick up Ben
Then off to the bar for a few tonics and gin

Six hours later and things are little blurred
My singing is great, I sound like a star
Can’t say same for Ben, man, his voice is slurred
So time for home, we head for the car.
State your destination, a woman’s voice purrs
I clearly state Sandsend Drive, or so it sounds in my head
And off we go to Ben’s as the landscape blurs
While we sit in the back, like bugs in a bed
I awaken to daylight and the sound of the sea
My tongue is stuck to my mouth like something alien
And Ben’s head is snuggled on my Knee.
What the..?  I blink against a rising sun

As waves lap around the window frame
And gulls swoop on the floating craft
I utter a screech so high, a soprano could claim
And Ben's head catapults up to the roof of this drifting raft
His cry’s join mine in perfect harmony
And I look around to survey the coastal scene
A small crowd of dog walkers are looking in glee
Laughing at sight never before seen
Then a coastguard boat assails the waves to reach
Us, and throws us a line. I should be brave
Open a window. But I could drown so far from the beach
While Lifeguards choose to risk life and limb to save

So I huddle against Ben, like kids doing wrong
Then a Lifeguard makes a Spiderman leap
Across to the car, rips open a door, man he’s strong
He throws two life jackets to us with a sweep
Come with me if you want to live, he yells
Yep, I kid you not! He didn’t need to ask anymore
Soon we are on the lifeboat battling the swells
Watching as my car sank to the seabed floor
A cup of tea at Landsend Lifeboat station did the trick
As we told them the funniest story they’ve ever been told
Lesson learnt I’m avoiding modern cyber Technic
For one, bloomin things don’t understand the spoken word.

A hundred years from now
I will be a robot, encased in metal skin
Miles of electrodes running within

No heart beating

My brain will calculate
A billion calculations of fact
No need to sleep, just charge the battery pack

No tears to shed

I will live in a box
Don’t need to sit on a chair
Just stand in a corner each night and stare

Love an unknown fact

Each day I will work
With a thousand others like me
No words spoken, silence reigns in this metal factory

Individuality what’s that?

I live a routine
Of scheduled never ending duties
A job for life, no need for job vacancies

A family lost

I have no expiry date
I am one, I am me
Forever more I will be

Alone

If I had never been born
Would there be a space left empty
Waiting to be filled with a human form

If I wasn’t here
Would the world mourn?
This child’s life, a star of Capricorn

Would my Family
Miss the laughter of jokes never told
Look for someone, they can never enfold

Would my friends
Act on advice never passed
Who will they turn to when feeling downcast?

And my love
The one I found, who will love you now?
Will they kiss the same when you make the vow?

If I was never here
There’ll be no change in discoveries of anything epic
And definitely not missed in the world academic

So there is no reason
Why I am here, that I can see
Living this life of mundane ordinary

Yet there was the time
I helped a stranger who was in need, in pain
Though I’m sure others would have done the same

Maybe that’s why I am here
Not to live a life of fame and celebrity
Just to bestow one simple kind act of extraordinary