He climbs the flight
of stairs
as if he’s playing in
the Aussie Open;
with each step taken
he fist pumps the air;
at the top
his face glows with triumph
- pic courtesy of Wikipedia
Flight
sport
Temporarily Unattended
Sometimes my mind
runs off
like that bloke’s mouth
outside the gym
pontificating about those fisticuffs
at the footy
“those weren’t friendly fisticuffs;
that was full on, mate”,
about George Pell:
‘ someone will pop him off one day,
like they did JFK’
or the Black Lives Matter protest rallies —
you don’t want to know’;
but I round my mind up
before it goes too far off the tracks
& give it a little talking to:
mostly I keep a close watch on this mind
of mine
What If ?
What if you took it down a notch or two
Instead of up?
There’d be less noise
less striving
Less busting your gut for glory.
Of course, you’d have to make way
For all those people scrambling up
The ladder of success
Instead of down
Like you’d be doing.
But there’d be room for the other virtues:
Indolence, compassion, contentment
That don’t get much of a look-in.
Sure, you could do that,
Knew people who’d taken it down a good few notches
And got by.
Kinder, gentler folk.
But what if everyone did it?
A whole lot of things would change.
Take Big Sport, for instance.
There’d be no Olympics, no NBA, No World Cup.
But would that matter?
Would it really matter?
What did people do before Sport anyway?
The Insoluble Problem of Motivation
It had been on the vacant lot next to the church
For over half a year and no one in all that time
Could rustle up enough motivation to mow the lawn
Or clear it of rubbish. I thought of calling
The number on the back a few times but just couldn’t
Get motivated enough to ring or attend one
Of their weekly meetings & I thought about something
A friend had said about running a Special Olympics
For the Motivationally Challenged but the problem
With that, I said, was that nobody would bother
To turn up. I thought then of the historically highly
Motivated: Hitler, Stalin, the rapacious bankers, Isis
And concluded that a low motivated populace isn’t
Necessarily a bad thing.
John Malone 