A Decade Portrayed

The year had run out of days

Which ended in parties and plays

Lots of drinking and eating

Justified every meeting

Then declaring a changing of ways

New Year a promise from day one

That a dry month had truly begun

Teas and coffees galore

Allowed oneself to restore

One’s kidneys and liver for fun

The old year passed far and away

Looking back on so much to say

All the ups and the downs 

Misgivings and frowns

Cheer up have a great New Year Day

Oh! Two O Two O

Ring out the lusty midnight bells

Hear the cheers of expectation

Chanting loud as a football crowd

Another New Year incantation

Every wish and possibility

In swarms of laughing groups

Making every promise earnestly

Prepared to jump through hoops

Gathered packed out for the moment

A choir of joyous counting down

When the launch of bright incendiary 

Brings out the New year on the town

Around About

STORY LINK - Science Alert

When waiting at the station

Without a watch or platform clock

Our sense of hours and intervals

Far from steady as a rock

For the drift between arrivals

Where expected trips begin

Can’t be guessed or estimated

If when started from within

Many dangers in a guessing game

Where what is what is where its at

Whether early on-time overdue

Demands a Station Master’s hat

Ever Fessing

As always he would always write

Always typing black on white

Always wondering if for once this one

Would always be the best he’d done

As always he would write too much

Always ending up as double-dutch

Always busy with his studying

Would always work his inborn clutch

As always when the words went stale

Always looking at a grander scale

Always knowing that was not for now

Would always ponder when or how

As always someway is a finite ride

Always hoping not to be denied

Always come what may the fogginess

Would always let the lines digress

As always that is how it is

Always working on the writer’s quiz

Always testing out the many ways

Would always to his end of days

In Attendance

Masses gather in a sing-song mood

It’s what the time of year dictates

Gathered round the picky bits

Peanuts truffles sticky dates

Hearing cheers from smile veneers

Strutting out in winter wear

Slapping backs and lyric wax

With all and sundry there

Meet and greet and share the heat

Time to join the winter habit

Even though you may be out of it

Feeling weather worn and wabbit

Oxford Dictionaries

I’ll See You In My Screen

Brain Pickings: We lull ourselves into a trance of passivity and busyness

Busy, busy loads of doing

No time left for being

Must do this must do that

Rapid hurried fleeing

No sitting staring standing still

Step and fetch it right away

No time now for present time

Just looking forward to that day

Waiting vexed for one more text

Existence up on trial

Too much to do no time for you

I’ll send a picture of a smile

Rooms packed full of no one there

Drifting in and out of space

They come they go on screens that show

A wishful made up face

Neolithic Prototypic

Here again It’s solstice time

To decorate ourselves like plants

Celebrating how it won’t be long

Before the fertile festive dance

This shortest of the winter phase

We hope it can’t get any worse

Looking to those light filled days

And sleep away the murky curse

Apologies to those who need

A super nature hyper fix

Fancy dress up have a party

Be inspired by complex tricks

The sun is there and everywhere

Our tilted planet turns and spins

Mathematically its twice a year

Where it ends and then begins

Taking Sides

I have a double-sided mirror

Which looks on many sides

The future past and present

Where the in between resides

As I pass by and peep at now

I’m in the present and the past

With the future on the other side

Which without a doubt comes last

The past and now are my beginnings

A mirror image I can share

Whilst I wonder if the other side

Will allow a chance to stare

On the other side of here I fear

Where the future changes fast

I sneak a look and there I find

Me looking once more from the past

Poles Apart

STORY LINK

It seems our North magnetic pole

Is changing its criteria

From where it was now shifted

In the region of Siberia

Since 1830’s when discovered

It’s moved on 1400 miles

No wonder that when rambling

I get confused locating stiles

Way passed the Greenwich highpoint

Veering wildly off the line

We check our matches in the meantime

Whilst all our readings redefine

You’re still there and we’re still here

As we affirm recalibrate

Trusting senses of directions planned

Arriving somewhere near the date

Reminiscence

The past now locked in picture frames

To be wondered at and guessed

By future eyes who might apprise

On reminiscing days when pressed

Strange it is how once they sat 

Their faded faces strain to speak

A look that says I passed this way

Now just a portrait posed antique 

Snapshots more than twists of fate

Abundant treasures proving worth

They let you share a wistful while

In storylines a past rebirth

Modicum

What is little what is small

What is teeny weeny tiny

More minor than the miniscule

Precisely pointed even spiny

Slighter than the most reduced

Lesser than the itsy minnow

If you’re thinking less than minor

You’re down there in the winnow

Deep below the shallow end

The lowest point of guarantee

At the edge of our quintessence

Are our roots in quantity

Oxford Dictionaries

A nanometre

A millionth of a millimetre

A billionth of a metre

or to put it more simply 

One thousand-millionth of a metre.

Who Won It?

Here we are inhaling dust

Fall-out from the winds of quarrel

Nothing more to say right now

No olive branch or perfumed laurel

No good spitting blood right now

We need a slow transfusion

We’ll have to stare until the aftermath

Becomes transition or confusion

Weak until the springtime comes

Far too cold for more hot air

It won’t be long before the change of tune

Becomes delight or deep despair

It’s clear the mandate given

Is a blank cheque from us guys

Beneath the microscope of worth

We trust there are many less lies

Out of Cash

The money man with abacus eyes

Has a hole in the wall expression

Change credit to needy interest

At cash point flow in close precision

Fast transactions all so easily done

To the tallyman’s satisfaction

Swift recompense high street expense

A threshold chain-linked sealed transaction

When your wallet is a cash strapped bag

Laid bare by front end pressure

The emptiness screams hunger raw

Takes all your worth that they can measure

Fluff In The Turnups

You can write your stuff in colour

Flowery sweet and nice

With Asian lilts of contemplation

Herbal flavoured oils and rice

You can swim around deep meanings

Take in air as best you can

Become a model of the masterpiece

Forget you’re only one more man

You can reach beyond the atmosphere

Climb the highest mountain peaks

But in the end you must come down

To face the heated needs of freaks

You can give the giving up a try

Pretend it wasn’t worth the strain

Never mind it’s what compulsion does

For those acknowledging their pain 

For Good and All

Debating what’s good

is a good thing to do

It depends on 

results understood

Outcomes not always 

too good to be true

And may sometimes 

be misunderstood

Goodness alone 

lacks meat on the bone

For delight adds

more to the good

Being good 

at your fun 

adds a giggle or two

In the jungle 

I’m sure that it would

You’d better be good 

is all she said

In fact much better 

than that

Wearing good clothes 

may of course help

On your head 

fit a very good hat

How will I know

if I’m good enough yet

Even when I do all 

that I can

Trying hard to define

whoever I’m mine

A good deal 

much more than I am

Rhymeatism Revisited

Back then they said I looked like Topol.
But, I'm not a rich man.

He had to rhyme he thought about it
He had a host of words around it

He knew somehow he had unwound it

He was sure at first he had found it
He sought evidence to surround it

He felt a rewrite might have crowned it

He watched a flood of words that drowned it
He hesitated to expound it
He felt shameful to propound it
He thought they would confound it
He even offered to redound it

He feared society would impound it

He knew to date no one had found it
He dreaded publishers would rebound it

Living In The Present Time

In this merry month of giving

Singing melancholy songs

To rise above the winter misery

With aims of righting all our wrongs

Sending peace and goodwill wishes

To each and all and everyone

Partaking in a festive brew

Serving supplements homespun

Gathered snugly from the icy chill

Accepting all fine fare  together

In deep commune yet hoping soon

To fly afar in better weather

Seize On All Greetings

Picture by: lottie murphy https://lottie-murphy.com

Toby a Turkey 

in fine dress preferred

To be seen in large gatherings

Such a genial bird

Dressing for dinner

In fine  feather wear

With a hat for the season

Quite a dish debonair

When the family sat

Around the table to share

Cooing eminent praises
Though he now unaware

Septimontium

Here is the month of final chances

To make out something of the year

Looking backwards looking forwards

Where the winter mist holds dear

Tipping out our bags of promises

Burn the logs of sad regrets

For now we walk the burial march

December’s ghostly silhouettes

Prepare yourself for nowhere time

Attend the wake of last year’s loss

Play the music loud for singing with

Pick up the heft of next year’s cross

On The Lookout

Looking down the plothole
Dismayed by too much draught
Not a valid word for many a day
From cousin Mary who just laughed

You'll need a block and tackle boy
To continue with your draft
Then the light of inspiration came
Offering rescue on a raft

The raft was full of someone’s notes
Pinned upon the central shaft
Fluttering like winking eyes

Which at once revived his craft

The plothole now was filling up
A dance of phrases choreographed
Proving all will come eventually
From the plothole telegraphed

Based on a tweet from David Catchpoole @Hopcatchy