Month: October 2024

A sea of backs

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

A skill I’ve never mastered

Is entering a room

All those people’s backs to me

What am I to do?

I don’t know how to join a group.

I enter slowly in

I stop at the edge of a random group

And fiddle with my drink.

No one seems to notice me.

How do I join in?

I wish the floor would swallow me

I struggle with the din.

I don’t know who these people are.

I’m not sure that I care.

I simply wish I wasn’t there

That I could disappear.

The circle doesn’t separate.

I hover by their backs.

Pretend like I am listening.

Then seek another drink.

I’ll go back through the process

Try another group.

If by chance they let me in.

I won’t have much to say.

I’m not a natural sharer.

Why’d you need to know?

Some can just talk endlessly

But I’m not one of those.

They won’t find me interesting

I’ve not got much to say.

At least I’ve got a place to stand

Until they drift away.

Of course there is the toilet.

I can take refuge there.

Anything to get away

And spend time on my own.

In a formal setting

I will have no nerves

However large the waiting crowd

I will know no fear.

But make me enter in a room

And face that sea of backs.

That’s a thing I simply dread.

I feel so out of place.

No need to imagine! That’s how we grew up.

Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

No need to imagine

That’s how we grew up!

Saw my first computer

When I was age eleven.

Our famous school computer

They were very rare.

It was so unusual

It made ‘Tomorrow’s World’.

It took a whole science lab

With all its flashing lights

And all it did was work out

Complicated sums.

There were no computers

Growing up at home

What could we have done with them?

Didn’t see the point.

Not that we’d afford one

Expensive piece of kit

They were just for scientists

Not the likes of us.

You wanted to find out stuff?

You’d have to turn to books.

Huge encyclopaedias

Took pride upon our shelves.

There was no social media

Were no mobile phones

Only very few of us

Had a phone at home.

We’d communicate by letter

Or simply face to face

You’d have to make arrangements

Re when and where to meet.

There’s no such thing as GPS

You had to use a map

Or rely on friends’ directions

And hope you got it right.

The world has got much smaller

Communication links

Those days if you were abroad

A letter could take weeks.

There weren’t that many channels

Assuming you’d TV

You’d have to just watch

what was on.

Or maybe read a book.

We’d get news from the papers

Or radio twice a day

Not the constant coverage

That you enjoy today.

But news we could rely on

We knew where it came from.

No one spewing lies or hate

Divisive claims online.

Travel was more difficult

Harder to research

You’d need a travel agent

Too hard to book yourself.

Finding shops and restaurants

Was pretty hit and miss

You’d have to go in person

And simply take a chance.

There is no Tripadvisor

You can’t look up reviews

There is no buying things online

You trek around the shops.

I worked in a library

The catalogue on cards.

Each book had a card in it

They’d all be filed by hand.

No easy way to look things up

We’d thumb through books or cards

You’d come in to a library

And there’d not be one PC.

It’s hard now to imagine

To think of where we were.

Computers have their downsides

But I think it’s better now.

I wish I could write obscurer

What skill would you like to learn?

I’ve read other people’s poems
And they don’t much look like mine
I wish I could write obscurely
Be done with silly rhymes.

I’d like to shroud in mystery
But just say what I mean.
I wish I was better at writing
And could write obscurer lines.

I’d dab words round my canvas
Pluck metaphors from the air

Obscure what I was saying
And leave you crying for more.

I’d like to have you scratch your head
And wonder what I mean
But it seems to come out
In just plain words
No hidden meaning at all.

Maybe I’m just shallow?
Don’t have hidden depths.
There are other, cleverer writers
And I’m just way too dumb.

Think where I could take this
If I didn’t say what I meant?
Fathomless conjectures,
Museful meandering,
Pensive pontification
Big words,
extravagantly constructed sentences?

But would that still be me?
My tired and torrid attempts
To twist, turn and complicate
My communications for the benefit
Of audiences immune to the
Innocence of my simplistic doggerel
Are condemned to fall on fallow ground.
Seeds ungerminated
Failing to come to fruition.

I can’t be doing with that stuff.
I’ll just say what I mean!

Handyman

What skill would you like to learn?

I’d like to hang a picture up

And not have plaster crack.

Maybe have a shelf or two

That sits straight on the wall.

I’d like to hang a door straight

Replace a broken hinge

Knock up clever cabinets

That make great use of space.

I’d like to understand what’s broke

And think that I can mend.

Know how to replace a fuse

And make things work again.

Mend a leaking gutter

Unblock a smelly drain.

Saw a piece of wood in two

And not mess up the grain.

I wish I didn’t panic

When faced with simple tasks

Occasionally being useful

Is that too much to ask.