Yet More Sharing

Trust

That portrait was my first wife
A happy smile the world beguiles
Contrary to modern trends
She was my very first lover
And I was very definitely mature
Our togetherness was like my first breath of life
A dawn revealing a landscape I didn’t know existed
Birds seemed to sing their songs just for me
The wind
Wrapping itself round the two of us was far more exciting
We shared music and plays and paintings
In ways that revealed the truth to both of us
I was not reborn, just a different person
And her interest in me made me boldly adventurous
A traveller in a hitherto unexplored land
In a partnership fashioned skilfully in paradise
Marriage came inevitably, and children
But time coldly stated its price
Not contempt but certainly familiarity
And an opportunity for a friend to take my place
Peter was his calling card
A musician who played a different tune
Cadenzas of seduction and drum beats of passion
I didn’t have a chance
She was drawn away from me as a moth to light
And I withered on my ageing vine
But all was not lost
Time can be a friend in the oddest of ways
It gave her time to sense the reality of passing affection
That was my chance so I welcomed her back to my side
And then she died
Suddenly and with little time for farewells
Her eyes still meet mine from my wall
That smile transcends so much else
There was a time with her when I could move mountains
That memory revokes all betrayal…trust me

Compassion

See how your business acumen circles you
Casting aside irrelevant reality
From there you rule your flourishing domain
Like an absolute monarch of old
Free of such trivialities
As compassion for others
Or even awareness of their existence
Details of your regency knock on your door
Like servants from downstairs
Accounts of successful transactions get your attention
And inflate your ego
Mission statements are rewritten in the light of planned takeovers
Market movements
Capture your interest and stir your emotions
Like pushover tries in a Rugby Test
Everything that matters in your life is dealt with
By your well-paid workforce
Who know that if they blunder with a deal
They will be sacked
And thus you agitate within your circle of perception…
Unknown to you
That man who delivers your daily paper
Has just lost his father to COVID-19
Your lawyer, Smithers, has a son on drugs in intensive care
Andrews, the butcher who sells meat to your supermarket,
Has a wife dying of glioblastoma
Horiya, a secretary in your chain,
Has a sister longing for a visa in a Palestinian refugee camp
Elvira, a cleaner of yours, is a single mother of five
And Jonas, the CEO you recently replaced, has lymphoma…
But things are looking up for the corporation
The market share is brilliant and all’s right with the world

One More Time

So the years pass
In spite of everything you do
Leaving behind the wreckage of your schemes
And the constant reminders of what might have been
Vide these things
A broken promise here
A lie carefully crafted to achieve a questionable outcome
A balanced budget
Leaving the needy frantically ignored
A rich man’s pipe dream given a synthetic imprimatur
Praised to high heaven as progress
Funds raised by selling off resources that once belonged to all
Treaties signed
To verify your enemies through cultivated animosity
Frantic sales promotion of what you can dig up or cut down
Pride in achievement loquaciously confirmed
By praise of a strong economy and categorised data known as jobs
Thus the years dwindle away
Time for the next election arrives
This may well be my last, according to standardised chronology
I have been there before, so many times
Suffered the blunders that led to war or other chaos
Felt the pain
As the world I once knew
Was pilloried by the stock market or vested interest
Even the trees I once climbed all those years ago
Are now memories crushed by concrete
So be it; let it be no more
But all this still can change
I will play my frail hand one more time
And vote for the truth in my final effort to remedy the world’s pain
QED perchance

The Last Koala

That was the last koala I have seen
I think it was a male
There was a belligerent air about him
As he watched me from on high
He seemed to own the tree
Grasping it with his whole body
Climbing upwards to well-being with such assurance
And looking down on ground ridden me
With something akin to arrogance
Then he started eating leaves
Efficiently and with obvious satisfaction
Yet still watching me like some accredited scientific observer
He didn’t trust me obviously, even though I was no immediate threat
We both loved those trees
They gave me shade and him sanctuary and upmarket meals
Somehow I enjoyed his company
I thought back to my childhood and remembered
How I liked cuddly things
We stayed together for quite a while
Then he seemed to become bored with me
And moved to another tree and then another
Destined I thought for another meeting perhaps
A sojourn where the trees were thickest or perhaps a tryst
That meeting of ours was a little more than a year ago
I came back again only this morning
Found that tree again
It is nothing more than a black stump
All those other trees are but charred relics
It was a wildfire that did this
Killed five humans and injured more
As for my koala 

Nowhere to be seen on earth

Fallacious Scrutiny

Please tell me young man
Why are you learning?
What is the reason for your quest for knowledge?
Do you want to know why science
Is the life force of your existence?
Are you spellbound with wonder to discover
Why our deeds in the past
Have led to our follies in the present?
Does art cry on your shoulder and long to be understood?
Are you interested in exploring the chasms of the human mind
To discover why we do things and what we are?
Are you inspired by strangers from other lands
Who teach you new and different ways to think?
What is that you say?
None of those frilly things inspire you?
Your mission in life is precise and supported by tradition
Immediate consequences
Quick feedback on the reality of what you are
In other words, the examination
Aha! So that’s it
A tribal classification is your dream
An indoctrination to determine your destiny
A category system to point out the élite
And the hewers of wood and drawers of water
That is your reason for learning
Very well then
Remember this in your salad days
The highest award lies always beneath the sword of Damocles*
And the first and second quartiles are still half our future
So beware of false judgements
If you fail, remember
Time and truth are the only true determinants
And reality is mere conjecture in a time restricted test
The future as a friend can help you find what really matters
If you never cease to try

*Damocles, when he achieved fame, saw a sword above his head poised and ever ready to fall.

royciebaby