Home verses Away

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A Feather for your Thoughts

A feather flows upon the breeze
bringing with it shattered dreams;
and times long gone, alack, alas
are blown into the dark morass
and the forest of destiny’s trees.

Distorted branches intertwine
the complicated routes of time,
moving forward, turning back;
the only help along the track
a signpost without any sign.

Confusion of values permeated,
erroneous misled goals created;
pseudo accolades received,
reflected glories once achieved;
by pretentious peers negated.

Realisation that the stress and strain
was created on the altar of gain;
now no longer corporate tethered,
the lines of sad authority severed;
that feather is freely airborne again.

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Early Writings

Wooden desks with squeaky tip-up seats,
Their sloping lids varnished nearly black.
Haphazard hieroglyphics of shaky initials.
Crude family histories traced unknowingly
By past generations of scratching scholars.

At the top of the desk a chiseled gutter.
A channel to hold an archaic school pen.
That ink-stained stem tipped with a nib,
Its two proud prongs slowly separating,
Openly daring you to put pen to paper.

At the corner of the desk a ceramic inkwell
Dropped into a hole that holds it suspended.
Filled with blue-black ink like watered soot.
That same ink that has splattered the desk,
Creating a patination of blackened spots.

Now set to balance teetering on the nib;
Perilously expanding into a dangling droplet
Which swells increasingly out of control
And dives on to the pristine exercise book.
As if craving to despoil the whiteness of the page.

Then comes the thrill of the blotting paper.
That almost magical soaking up of the spill,
Before tentatively going once more to the well
And penetrating its dark black depths.
Remembering to scrape on the way out.

And here the world of writing begins
Like the winding trail of a drunken spider
Staggering along a feint lined track.
Trying to prove the capability of its syntax
And the comprehension of its sense.

Eventually you reach the end of the page.
You see the black stained index finger,
That, seemingly, will be with you forever,
Or until such time that some Hungarian
Invents the ball-point pen.

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Clocks and Keys

Mantle clock ticking, to the hour.
Front door clicking, on the latch.
This was the world of clocks and keys,
Minute to snatch,
Bus to catch.

Time-clock nailed, on factory wall.
Clock cards filed, your number learned.
When clocking-in no tolerance given.
Penny turned,
Shilling earned.

Door keys hung on a kitchen hook.
Crudely strung with knotted cord.
One for back door, one for front,
Crime ignored,
Friends abroad.

Time moves on……

Car keys clipped on designer rings.
Keycard slipped into plastic purse.
Protected by a security strip,
Car thief curse,
Break-ins worse.

Numbers flickering on appliances.
Always tinkering, the time upset.
Fluorescent liquid crystal shining,
Programme pre set,
Power cut; re-set.

Passwords giving people access.
Time stamp stopping people’s lives.
An e-lectronic cyber world,
Will clocks revive
Or keys survive?

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