Tepid

Tepid.

Tepid’s okay if you’re bath water

or happy to sit on the fence.

But it’s not where life is.

Life is a fizz,

a gee whiz of a ride.

It should be entered wide-eyed

and big-hearted.

You don’t want it over

before it’s started.

Blotches and Bumps

Bumps and Blotches.

I was worried how the kids would react

to my recent disfigurement

at the airport

but they rushed up to greet me

when I disembarked

like they were little kids again

taking selfies with me,

showing me off at their workplace

taking me out to lunch

the movies

[ ‘Talk To Me’]

sharing their favourite Netflix series ‘Heartstopper’

three days of love and good cheer

the bumps and blotches blithely disregarded

I Missed the News Today, Oh Boy

I Missed the News Today, Oh Boy.

I missed the News today, oh boy.

I missed it yesterday too.

The world may have shifted a little

but I never felt it.

Instead I watched ‘A Man Called Otto’ where grumpy Tom Hanks

mellows into a beautiful human being.

Then I settled back with Rick Stein in the sunny blue Aegean

lost in the spice markets of Istanbul

rhapsodizing over a feast of roast goat and fennel with locals.

Plenitude and goodness.

I felt the sun on my shoulder

the wind at my heels

no longer mired in the muck of the world.

World Chocolate Day

Just a reminder: it is World Chocolate day tomorrow.

Have you got your post ready?

I’ve just broken off a few squares

to get the juices working,

All I Want to Do

There’s an engine running in my head.

A Chevy Silverado.

It’s revving up.

I fasten the seat-belt.

Grab the wheel.

Don’t know where I’m going.

All I want to do

is rest on this mattress,

have pudgy dreams.

But it’s grown wheels

zooming along the highway

and all the road songs come on the radio

‘It’s a Wide Open Road’

‘On the Road Again’,

‘The Long and Winding Road’,

all my favorites,

how can a poor boy rest?

and I’m belting the songs out,

the wind winnowing my hair

twirling my kiss curl

like a lover’s finger

*pic courtesy of pinterest

Bottle Tops

Like Bottle-tops in a Bucket.

…or maybe contemplate

my silvery thoughts

like bottle-tops in a bucket:

the days of wine and roses,

the thinning days of desperation,

the elegiac whistling of the wind,

then that text from Pentecostal Peter :

He is Risen,

Time to enter the fairground of Life

again

Allayed

Allayed.

They took me up the steps

after the hall emptied

and pulled aside the heavy curtain.

And

there it was

in the centre

of the stage,

wide and welcome as a smile

a bath

tub egg yolk yellow

rim robin blue.

My fears were allayed.

The One No One Wanted

The One No One Wanted.

It was the one no one wanted

The last one on the shelf

The one no one wanted, I didn’t

Much want it myself.

But there were no others

So I had little choice

The one that all had shunned

I purchased myself.

And Oh it fitted the bill

To the nth degree

So the one no one wanted

Was the right one for me.

*pic pinterest

In the wee small hours

Someone’s been out in the garden

between the evening and the dawn.

I wonder what it was.

A rabbit or a fawn?

Yes, someone’s been in the garden

in the depths of the dark.

Someone fleet and nimble

who have left their mark.

Someone’s been in the garden

before the day was born —

the Xmas elf of Davis Court? —

& from their roots all weeds have torn,

These Books

These books have been around the block.

These books have done the hard yards.

They’ve had the stuffing knocked out of them

like a much loved teddy bear,

the sort of sorry, scruffy specimens grandparents bring

to ‘The Repair Shop’ ( UK ).

Is there an equivalent place for bruised, battered books?

What happens to them?

Is there a retirement home for old books?

A Hospice where sick books go to die?

Are we allowed to visit?

Is it over for paper books,

like it is for paper bills?

Is the future for books solely digital?

I for one like to hold books

like children teddy bears.