Once worked

Where I once worked
Now just a desk, a seat and phone.
Posters still on the wall
But drawers empty as
Notebook pages.

Where once I worked
Now new desks and ringtones
Gossips still in the hall
But not about me
Not for ages.

Once I worked where
Passion and policy collided
Service was still a call
But then it went unanswered
No messages.

Just feeling?

Love is a feeling
No, no it's about willing actions
Demonstrating and serving
Not self gratifying
But self giving
Until you are empty
Unloveable
Perhaps
And unforgiving.

Surely love is fiery passion
Thats burns into actions
Maybe reckless
Foolishness
Not self conscious
But Other focussed
Until they are consumed
Unloved
By any other
and unforgetting.

On Michael Jackson's death

A living legend dies
And we autopsy his dysfunction
As the virally broadcast loss
Dissects our griefs outpoured in public
Over songs and dances that were shared
Millions of times over
While he's beat it
And sleeps
Never to be harmed anymore.

Inspiration

Why is melancholy so inspiring?
So many sad songs
Is happiness too fleeting
That prose can't capture it?
The froth, fizz and the hours
That whizz by?

How can pain make such art?
Bittersweet symphonies
Does the masterpiece
trap and contain it?
Bound up in oil and glaze
Never to harm us again?

Midsummer

Midsummer in Scotland
Heat trapped in houses
Still light
Till nearly midnight
Windows open but no
Exhaling of the stifling air.

Midsummer in Scotland
Endless evening
Two days in one
Sometimes sun!
Nowadays barbeque, patio and
Decking are standard fare.

Midsummer, Scotland
High altitude clouds etch
New coastlines and oceans
Solsticed
and soul stirred
At the vast map of possibilities
until sunset burns them bare.

Normalcy

It’s a blanket
Reassuring and cosy sometimes.
With her cousin Constancy
Always there.
Not changing much
Maybe fraying and fading
Taking you to the source of memories
When things weren’t so bad
When the sun shone
With halcyon rays
When things were normal.

Daily enveloping
Your body’s state of being
Regulating it
Innoculating you from the life of risk
From unexpected outcomes
Closing off the world of dreams
So that they stay dreamlike and
Not normal
Not everyday experience
Neither achievable
Nor desirable.

But can normal ever quite be the same
as it was before things strayed
from whatever was last recognised
as normal?

Learning comes from mistakes
And the shattering of norms
Risk it or sleep to dream.

Catalyst

A change maker
Yet not changing
Or making anything

A precipitate
Chemically speaking
that makes a reaction go faster
without
being consumed in the process

Precipitating
events and chains of events
happenings and altering relationships
In the people around you
Sometimes without even knowing,
By strict definition ‘especially without being involved in
or changed by the consequences.’

That last part
Humanly speaking
Is hard to practice
Too much precipitates

Flash past

Californian sunshine
Bathed Kilmarnock one day
Momentarily really
Dusty dry street, broken glass glistening at the kerb
Struck by the wheels
Of the first skateboard my eyes set upon
It clunkered and thunked
Making an alien rhythm
Flashed past
A thing of US import
Really in Kilmarnock?
Could I ever?
Seen on TV only
Now on my granny’s street

I was not that boy
That flashed past
No early adopter
Could I ever?
See on TV only
Wouldn’t really actually
Have a go
Could I ever?
Watched it, flash by
Never thinking
That I could ever.

So much flashes past
Signals to other lives that
Needn’t bounce off and be repelled
It seems ‘Roger that’
Would be better.
Sometimes
To say ‘received’
Instead of mute watching
And later wishing.

Worsening forecast

Al Gore video on worsening climate crisis
Al Gore presents updated slides from around the globe to make the case that worrying climate trends are even worse than scientists predicted, and to make clear his stance on ‘clean coal.’

Astoundingly beautiful lyrics, sounds great too.

"Marching Bands of Manhattan" Death Cab for Cutie

If I could open my arms and span the length of the isle of Manhattan
I’d bring it to where you are making a lake of the East River and Hudson
If I could open my mouth wide enough for a marching band to march out
They would make your name sing and bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings

I wish we could open our eyes to see in all directions at the same time
Oh what a beautiful view if you were never aware of what was around you
And it is true what you said: that I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again I’ll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate “half empty” or “half full”
It slowly rises: your love is gonna drown

plans - death cab for cutie