Positively On South Street

 

Thinking little else but heat today

Sitting in our holiday hutch

Like a waddle load of Penguins

A time out world of don’t care much

A bunch of preening creamers

Glossy oiled and soaking sun

Floating exercised and feeling fit

Slurping cold beers just for fun

Taking Facebook pics of look at us

Toasting absent friends we play

In a dream of maids and waiters 

We pass a pleasant time of day

Full Circle

 

A virtual thought occurred to me

Whilst I considered limitations

How artificial cleverness

Emerged from ceaseless gravitations

Human scholars agonized and fussed

About the power of brain machines

At robotic speed their data banks

Could number crunch to smithereens

There is a war of brainwave dominance

A cunning plane to supersede

To reinvent the fire and turning wheel

A raging rush to overfeed

Standing back and looking on

The answer there is plain to see

How when everything is reinvented

They’ll rediscover you and me

Based on an article by D Fickling 

Link to Robots will take your bank job

Cease at Peace

 

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

Sharing one last 

knowing look

As we relax

our final grip

Close our book

of fragile pages

Let our long-held

future slip

Sleep filled eyes

one final dream

Take that finish line 

at speed

No luggage left 

to recollect

Restraints and 

shackles freed

No longer held by 

sense of duty

Sailing through

that closing door

What once was passed

Now gone at last

In one last tidal roar

 

Paraphernalia

In my baggage full of trappings
Which I struggle to arrange
Properties I should have lost
That I never did exchange
 
They clutter up my carry space
Bits and bobs that clunk around
Traces of lost meanings
Like shipwrecks run aground 
 
I’ll confine them to the dustbin
For all the good they’ll do me now
Not worth salvage or recycling
In passing on they’ve lost their wow
 

Homeworker

Photo by Maxime on Unsplash

Not obliged to travel far today

No waiting for a train

Feeling pangs of missing out

I let them pass like clouds and rain

 

Half-finished shadowy articles

Reading meaning as it comes

Apparitions indicate a route

Clearly made of breakfast crumbs

 

Perhaps a shard of broken eggshell

Stuck to a bead of marmalade

Near the ghost of toast disposed of

Tell again how life’s homemade

 

Something or Other

Is anybody in there?

When imagination leaves you blank

With little else to say

Like a picture book of emptiness

A featureless display

One must find a point in pointlessness

And so, regain another way

Discovering how little hints

Can fight irrelevant dismay

Dreams arrive without permission

In background style of anyway

Occurring most when otherwise

Does its utmost to delay

A Question of Nuts

Hazelnut picture Unsplash.com

Chatting with a Hazelnut
Sat down beside a pod
Discussing issues deep within
I give a gracious helpful prod
 
A husky voice was pleading
How there must be some escape
To leave a home and then to roam
Fit to flee in better shape
 
Sadly, such a nutty hope
Is an outcome misconstrued
Quick-release out from a cell
At best will leave one chewed

Bin It!

No matter what you think of it

Trash is no one's laughing matter

But there are those who take the view

Spreading much more than a smatter

Masters of our mucky streets

They scatter clutter everywhere

Jumble-dropping dumper-louts

Tossing mess without a care

Not a thought for consequences

On the public they forsake

Defecating food and packaging

Feeding vermin in their wake

In a throwaway society

Litter-muggers make a pile

Dribbling wrappings with their slop
Designer dressed in rubbish style

 

So There

 

Relaxing in my easy chair

Fed and watered leaning back

Winter dustings on my window

Flaming coals cut me some slack

Let the world go where it will

I rest my anchor hard and fast

Content with pleasant limitations

No flags flying on my mast

Sweeping dusty thoughts of old

Cannot penetrate my muse

As I wonder at the state of play
All forms of conflict I recuse

Oh Ain't it Tweet

How do you value your thinking 
If you never record what you thought 
Ignoring the quake that ideas make
Giving in to all that you ought

Using Twitter a workshop of notions
To inspire when sharing your state
Not looking to preach or even to teach
Finding better ideas to equate

When you have an idea worth a tweet
Get your characters lined up to go
No need to submit or feel like a twit
You're a thought full of sport in the know 

Geoffrey's Tale

 

The Knight who stated noble views

Had many victories to his name

Crusades of right and turning tides

With epic ethics took no blame

Among the browsing multitudes

Where hats and heads outside the fence

Scribbled out a poignant phrase or two

Which to some cannot make sense

In a crowded room of waiters

Plainly speaking with good cheer

A dancing deck of playing cards

Releasing trumps from too much beer

Trapped inside a ghostly maze

She walked a lost and lonely trail

Committing crimes of shamelessness

In whiter shades beyond the pale

And so it was in later stories told

Among the pilgrims who took turns

To speak of loss and noble cause

Of how the moonlight kissing burns

Procol Harum's 1967 strange lyrics plus Bach-style accompaniment has in 2009 achieved the most UK air plays for 75 years. The attentive listener will struggle to interpret the twist and turns found within. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales may imply a connection and so say some 'The Titanic'. 

As the Miller's Tale is a comedic quite to the Knights Tale I thought I might play with the ideas around the two tales and of course and perhaps go beyond A Whiter Shade of Pale.

The Very Go Round

Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

Inside our box of mind-blown tricks
Where prospects dance around on call
With many things that may or not
Recall at rapid speed or crawl
 
One wonders who can call the shots
So many players have a share
Whose choice of what will happen next 
Unplanned highlights in the air
 
This multi-function switch machine
A friend or foe that might disown
The notion that free will could be
In fields of mindset-ideas sown
 
 

Based on the article 'Your Mysterious Brain'

BBC Science Focus November 2021

A Rhyme in Other Words

 

Moisture on your philtrum

Perspiration? Maybe not

A hearty pulsing fontanelle 

Portrays an irritating spot

Artistically the lunula

Portends a renal ill

Or creases on your raschette

Allows a wave at will

The Ballad of Mel Capone

Photo by Kyle Williamson on Unsplash

As gloom descends on budget spends
Mel Capone has all the gear

Putting moonshine spells on bottles

Which he fills with wine and beer

He says it's not too taxing

Proof of heady aptitude

Notoriously brings bootleg hooch

To leave his neighbours stewed

Enjoying price advantages

Partaking high discounted swills

Tanked up on well-oiled tipples

Shots in picture-postcard stills

What Went Before

Photo by Jack Finnigan on Unsplash

 

Looking back on Ancestry
Showing up in history
Where we were
When we were
Through veils of shaded mystery
 
Very few were known to be
Yet now appear in memory
In record books
With dated hooks
Through veils of shaded mystery
 
Without them, I could never be
Not any form or shade of me
But here I am
And there they were
Through veils of shaded mystery
 
On the fringes of their borderline
A crazy quilt embroidery
Telling stories
Rarely told
Through veils of shaded mystery
 
Their lives in words comparably
At rest in time elusively 
Sharing now
With them somehow
Through veils of shaded mystery
  

Future Shock

Someone has broken the deadbolt
Releasing the chains on all-change
Liars dashed at breakneck speed
Pleading stocks, now up for exchange
 
Frightful states of running down
Too expensive bawled the Tsar
We’ve eaten all the jewellery
Declaring hunger wins by far
 
The future sending messages back
In language, they can’t understand
Where plenty is turning up empty
In what once was a bountiful land

Mournful Menace

 

Picture by Karim Manjra https://unsplash.com

They just don't get this climate thing 

Crooked motives drive dissent 

They mash their stash with so much cash

With appetite that won't relent 

 

Driving growth now exponential 

It feeds the ocean's mighty swell 

Cerulean blue will lose its hue 

Turning heaven into hell

 

It doesn’t have to end this way

In greasy dogma choking phlegm

Clear the air let life repair 

Avert first-past-the-post-mortem

 

Striking Clock

 

My sideboard clock needs winding up

I really miss that chime

So long a steady trusted piece

Now speaks of someone else’s time

In the early hours of many a day

This numbered dial kept time for me
A beating wing of flying by

Where past and futures turned by key

Short or long a momentary gauge

Attracts the dancing glancing eye

How much more or how much left

Conductor of the wistful sigh