I woke up one day

I woke up one day

I woke up one day and they were gone

The pop stars and rock stars and political bodies 

The styles of cars, and terminated oddities

                          …

I woke up one day after many wake-ups

And drew a line under the hoodies

And crudities – no longer in fashion

                          …

I observed how it all changed

Itemising the things that were no longer arranged

In that popular manner

They even use different grammar

                          …

I woke up another day and remembered the names:

The Presley’s and Lennon’s and Crosby’s and Connery’s

The Bolan’s and Cagney’s and names I’ve forgotten

                          …

I couldn’t see them in the present day

Their vapours had appeared and

Disappeared another way

                          …

I saw in their absence the crushing line of years

Years bumping up together –

At least – that’s how it appeared

                          …

I sneered –

I couldn’t bring them back except on celluloid

I couldn’t stop reminiscing – and concluding

Preparation is impossible to avoid

In light of the facts of corruptible flesh –

                          …

All singing and dancing their candle was lit –

If you think that’s all that matters –

You’re not getting it

                          …

But they represented earlier life – when energy

Aplenty was mis-spent in youth

Grabbing for straws we all together

Went at things – hell-for-leather

                          …

Time was wasted

But it’s hard to duck and dodge

It being so

For answers – we didn’t know where to go

                          …

As I was drifting into retro-reminiscing

Concluding there’s nothing new under the sun

I remembered it was all about having fun

                          …

But I woke up (as I was telling you a moment ago)

To find another name added to the roll call

At the Oscar Dinner, Show or Ball (?)

                          …

People – all those – we all know

Who represent passing time

There are times when I can be – feeling it so…

                         …

I woke up one day and found a mirror

I saw a man there – who was waiting his turn

I hadn’t realised he had grown old

And was supposed to feel it

I didn’t know – ‘cause I was never told

                          …

What am I supposed to do?

I can’t stop the train

Heading for the end of the line

The buffer stops and the buck stops here

Before The Creator – I must appear

                         …

Meantime back at the ranch or lunch

My mind wanders to a pier

A saying – batted about – yesteryear

‘Take a long walk – along a short pier’

                          …

This and similar quips come to mind

“Is he in?” We used to ask

“Who?” Was the scripted reply

“Mr. Norwood”

                          …

No one knew Mr. Norwood –

He had passed away

Looking in the mirror one day

To find he was ‘out of time’

(‘My sweet old fashioned baby…’)

                          …

I looked in a book one day

I found it again

Glancing through – romancing through

I saw faces long gone

Who wore those faces of youth

Just like mine

                          …

I compare the photos in collage

Fresh looking young man I was

Peering curiously at the world

                          …

As the quiet man in the background

I strolled passed everything

Observing – surprising – amounts of forms

“How’s the form?” Greeters would ask

                          …

Greeters long gone

Many and varied deaths they had

The ‘around the corner’ alcoholic

His name was John

                          …

He passed away

A friend of my brother’s

I didn’t know

I knew him one night in a bar – drunk or so

I was with a girl – she wanted to go

                          …

Deal out the memories like a pack of cards

Go on – put them out there – spread across the floor

The floor of your mind

And think to yourself – of all who have gone

They represent your journey – your encounters

With the strange – the normal –

And those above the norm

                          …

Wake up some day and realise it won’t be long

Before we join them beyond outer space

The end we must face

If I tell you the great sequel

You will think me – too strait-laced

                          …

Every generation must face these things

What do you bring to the table?

Your ideas are not enough

Because only enough is enough

                          …

Things – will – are – and – will still –

get rough

And if you don’t find answers that’s tough

                          …

Today I woke up and banged the keys

Today I woke up with a sneeze

Finishing off now – I must go…

                          …

Go home to that photo album

You possess

And have another look

That’s your family – friends –

And acquaintances that mark time for you

                          …

What age are you now?

There’s no need to say

You look around to answer but…

                          …

I’m on my way

Moved…

MOVED

He was moved once

Yea twice

But kept his emotions under wraps

He deflected their noticing looks

With a quip or two – producing doubts

They continued to discuss the matters at hand

After the brief acknowledgement (in civility given)

For not everyone knew the deceased as he did

The organisation got organised

Laying out it’s course of action

Man the boats, hands to the pump and plow

Get on with the business of why we are here

Slowly the many things to be done

Surfaced and swallowed all other considerations

At last the meeting ended

He went out and wept

Winds

WINDS

The big wind blows

You don’t know that wind

It’s never been here before

What do you know about wind?

It freezes to the bone

Up up and away in your

Beautiful idea of wind

As you reach to get the hat back

But it tumbles to it’s end

You – looking over the cliffside

As it floats down to it’s demise

                   …

Winds as winds go

You will not take time to pursue

You’re not a tornado chaser

But to escape one –

you will not reside

Rather ‘hit the road Jack’

before it abides

Now no wind is complete

Without the rain and hail

All of these are metaphors

That go beyond the pale

If you do not have an inkling

To hoist up your sail

                  …

Though in ‘riddles’ I speak

The next page is blown over

Now you can have a peek

Rambling in the windy air

I stumble to declare

Never man spake like the son of man

The Son of God – to declare:

He’s the One who created the wind

But you ask ‘is there anybody there?’

                   …

There’s another wind far superior

Mysterious to those who don’t know

Comforting – to blow away your turmoil

He will stay – and say what you need to hear

And you will know it – to be so

A ‘so be it’ amen – leaves your lips

                    …

Last but by no means least

It only remains to say

It blows where it will

Your number to display

Carrying you to a vision

Of an all-spiritual array

His life to offer – fresh and pure

                   …

For all your ills

at last…

In His wind –

you have found the cure

All door

ALL DOOR

This poem could become something

Coming up with something – as it does –

about a restaurant

But it’s only that ordinary place

That ‘hurry up and answer the phone’ place

Where I want to place an order

That cock-a-hoop waitress with the lounging voice

That won’t awake from sleep

Unless she gets a rise

That door-place where it seems all door

Smallnesses in tables and chairs

But largeness of door

Seemingly bigger cause it blows open and shut

And won’t close-shut of it’s own accord

When patrons enter and pay it no heed

It sticks ajar to play havoc with sinuses

With it’s draughty – icy – blast

Mingled with outside cigarette smoke

Of the filthy habit kind

Leaving it impossible to eat food with taste

A poem revisited

A POEM REVISTED

It’s that girl again

The one who moved in coffee shop circles

The one who tried to write a story

With her feet

And a new seat

At the coffee shop opposite –

Across the street

Whose head-story she would not repeat

As she journeyed in hopeful imagination

                        …

Maybe a needy person she would find

And buy them a coffee –

Perhaps an old lady

Fumbling for her money

Spectacles broken

Unable to differentiate

Between her coins

She would step up to fulfil her reason

For crossing the street for that other latte

She determined not to encounter

A nothingness scenario

                         …

After all – impulse had driven her here

To the pub with no beer

Silently she sat in another poem

Her thoughts drowned by the passing traffic

[search my post: other poem: ‘Another Coffee’ Sept. 22]

Thoughts unsettled

THOUGHTS UNSETTLED

Now as you might have seen

There’s not much changing in the scene

Paradoxically everything is in flux

                           …

Your thoughts may go from down and out

To what you might think is deluxe

But off they go again unsettled

in the extreme

                           …

As you look at this planet – reeling

You want to scream

You think this and you think that

You think maybe – tit for tat

                           …

But climate change doesn’t change a thing

When man’s behaviour is left or right-wing

                           …

It’s a mystery – even before the bye and bye

Earth and moon – sun and stars and sky

One of which will be dissolved

                           …

Our bodies too 

but there’s more than that – involved

                           …

In the fragility of time – the years clock-in

All because of corruption – all because of sin

                           …

Look unto the hills if you will

From whence comes your help?

                          …

Ask and I will tell you

This is the thought-settling truth

                          …

Christ The Lord is risen

His Presence – undeniable Proof

                          …

That He has left a guide book

(That should be no surprise)

Without it – the truth you will never realise

Two good men(?)

TWO GOOD MEN (?)

Trying to act humanely

She reached out her hand unassumingly

Helped the old guy get back on his feet

He had to keep going – he’d someone to meet

He was lightly made-up

Which was why her hand was enough

To send him on his way again

He thanked her – his appreciation was plain

She watched him slowly walk away

Waiting to make sure he didn’t go astray

Or wobble to another stop or

Fall or encounter some other mishap

Turning on her heels she set-off herself

To meet the man who took her ‘off-the-shelf’

There he was waiting in the doorway

In-her-life – to make sure

She too – didn’t fall prey or go astray

Pelting

PELTING

The rain was pelting down

Rotten fruit pelted at the performer

The hail was pelting down

As he stood at the corner

                     …

The pelting life can be ‘receive’ or ‘throw’

[What life will throw at you 

You just don’t know]

Soaked through or – aim – fire – go

A pelted man ready to fall

Held up by the stocks like a doll

                      …

He pelts his radiant defiant smile

At those who are active-pelting

A sarcastic grin – that says you can’t win

I’m here ’til you stop – I will not drop

                      …

All pelting must cease and a

new word for pelting must be found –

all pelting must go underground

Literature Demise

LITERATURE DEMISE

He wrote a piece that fell

on a multitude of ears

Inwardly digested by a fair amount of 

inward digestive systems

That is – I mean – what I’m trying to say is…

Taken on board – by a stumbled-on – majority

That made it brilliant – a brilliant piece of literature

The critics agreed and made speed

In hastening their accolades of much vaunted praise

But was it so?

Was it made much of – only in it’s time?

Whilst passing years eroded it – to demise

Only discovered again many moons later

Up from the grave of disregarded dusty stories

To rise short-lived for a while

But never regaining it’s ‘heavyweight champion’ status

What you make of words – it’s up to you

Alone you make the pilgrimage to the grave

The grave where the accident happened

Laying your yearly wreaths at the stone of

An old hardback copy – no one wants to read

Another Coffee

ANOTHER COFFEE

Over and across from the coffee shop

was a coffee shop

What a strange idea she got – in her head

To leave one coffee shop

And cross-over to the other

With hardly a time gap between

                       …

But – she did it

To her own surprise – she did it

“What kind of nonsense is this” she thought

Ordering a Latte but not in a tall glass

She never liked tall glasses

                       …

Whilst collecting her drink

She glanced round the room

As though the room could speak

And tell her why on earth

She had gone for another

coffee elsewhere?

                       …

So finding a space in the busy place

She sat staring straight ahead

Hardly even wanting the coffee

“Just at this point…” she thought

“In this story…” she thought

“Something should justify this move”

                       …

But instead the traffic noise outside

Drowned her in her own thoughts

She struggled through her drink

Not knowing what to think

Soul sale

SOUL SALE

The dark sales pitch – 

“You are that person

With a small circle of friends

Here’s a chance to make money

Here’s an opportunity to realise

That we can promote you and yours

What have you got to sell?

Also what do you want most?

Pray tell us that – as well

Here’s an opportunity

To give the clothes off your back

What’s your name by the way?

Is it Jack? Well Jack…

Today is your day

You have met me at the right time

You will benefit greatly

Just sign on the dotted line

It may be your soul for sale

But souls are dispensable

Think what you will be left with

Loads of money and possessions

Your soul in prison to stay

But prisons are – nicer today”

(Mark 8/36)

Coming over?

COMING OVER?

(fiction)

Friends were coming over

The long pause of waiting ended

A knock came to the door

It wasn’t the friends who were coming over

It was a parcel delivered by a man

Who held the parcel in his other hand

                          …

While handing the ‘sign here in digital print’

To the receiver who tried to sign – but it didn’t

Operate the way it should – so she stood

And tried to shake-off embarrassment

“It’s ok it never works” said the parcel man

So X marked the spot – like in a map or plan

                           …

Then in she came parcel ’n all

Only to discover while opening the same

That the friends coming over made it quite plain

That the present was an offered appeasement

They couldn’t make it today

Truth is – they were never coming over – anyway