What’s your dream job?
I’m too old for dream jobs
The old don’t dream of work.
I had enough of working life
The need to earn a crust.
There’s no place now I have to be
Or boss I must obey.
There’s time to do the stuff I like
Unworried by the pay.
There’s some things I still dream of.
I’ve still not wrote that book.
But dream jobs. It’s too late for them.
I think I missed the boat.
What makes a good leader?
True leadership is vision
It points the way to go.
A people see what they must do
And do it for themselves.
Good leaders are empowering
Don’t tell you what to do.
They help you find the best in you.
You do things for yourself.
A leader will surround himself
With all the help he needs.
He knows he’s not a one man show
Can’t do it all himself.
He pulls us all together
We each have our own role.
He helps us work collectively
And each play to our strengths.
The final thing I ought to say
Is he can be a her.
There’s nothing in these qualities
That says he’s not a girl.
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
Uninvent? No contest!
Has to be the bomb.
And if it can’t be all of them.
We’ll say the nuclear one.
Bombs are indiscriminate
You don’t know who you’ll kill.
Most likely be civilians
They are the coward’s way.
And the ‘payload just gets bigger
You can wipe whole cities out
Devastate whole countries
Obliterate our world.
Nuclear deterrence?
Supposed to keep us safe.
But who will rivals target
But others who have bombs?
Have they been successful
Or out an end to wars?
No. We’re too scared to use them.
Violence has not paused.
We’re waiting for the idiot
The ultimate suicide
Then that will be the end of it
We’ll all go up in smoke.
Hitching a lift on an iceberg
Penguins drifting by
They are hitching a lift on an iceberg
Antarctic transports’s cool.
Not sure where they are going
But couldn’t help but smile.
It gives your heart a little lift
When penguins just drift by.
In response to- dVerse Quadrille # 215, hosted this week by De Jackson aka WhimsyGizmo
#Keepitalive
#dVerse
http://dversepoets.com/2025/01/13/quadrille-215-ready-for-liftoff/
Where can you reduce clutter in your life?
We are in Antarctica
The least cluttered place on earth.
Unspoilt, uncluttered beautiful
Where humans seldom go.
It’s a haven here for wildlife
A place where nature thrives
Protected internationally
For science and research.
It’s a good place for reflection
And to know what matters most.
We live such busy cluttered lives
While here there’s peace and quiet.
Time to do a stock take
To think of what can go.
A simpler, less complex life
With space for thoughts to grow.
What is your favourite animal?
Right now I’m into penguins
Hope to see one soon.
Cruising to Antartica
In sight of icebergs soon.
We didn’t get to see them
Through the Magellan Strait
But sailing to Antartica
And Falklands after that.
They are fabulous creatures
That live upon the ice
Dignified and characterful
Despite the funny walk.
They live in harsh conditions
Protective of their young.
Everybody loves them.
We hope to meet some soon.
Think back on your most memorable road trip?
A road trip round West Africa
Nineteen seventy five
Setting out from Kano
The place I spent two years.
I went by public transport
Things like transit vans
Not exactly scheduled
You have to hang around.
The first lap up to Zinder
A city in Niger
Not sure where to stay there
But had amazing luck
I met a fellow traveller
Who took me to his home.
They treated me so kindly
The neighbours all came round
They all shared their food with me
A thing I can’t forget.
Then across to Niamey Niger’s capital.
From there to Ouagadougou.
Who else has been there?
I mostly stayed with Peace Corps
US volunteers.
A memorable experience
But there was more to come.
Down from Upper Volta
As Burkina Faso was back then
To Ghana and to Tamale
A north Ghanaian town.
From there to Takoradi
Cape Coast and its forts
Beautiful but a history
That’s sadly scandalous.
We slept in former slave forts
Beautiful but sad
And dined on fresh caught lobster
Prepared and served with rice.
Then Togo and Dahomey
On along the coast.
A journey through a rain storm
The wipers would not work.
I’m struggling not to sleep
Daren’t distract the driver
Or we’ll be off the road.
We get back to Nigeria
But the borders are all closed.
It’s goodbye General Gowan
There’d been a military coup.
There’s a blackboard at the border
I’m scared to photograph
‘All Nigerian Officers
Should collect new badges of rank.’
I can’t get back to Kano
My French is not too good
So I head off back to Ghana
Extend my stay back there.
I can eventually go back home
Ibadan, Jos, up North
Six weeks extended travelling
A trip I won’t forget.
In what ways do you communicate online?
It all went wrong with our heating
and we the wrong side of the world.
It’s all controlled by an online app
Or else we wouldn’t know.
It’s cold at home and frozen pipes
Could burst and cause a leak.
But Patagonia from the U.K.
Is far, far, far-away.
So we’re headed for Ushuaia
A town at the end of the world
There’s a problem at home
And we’re far away.
What are we to do?
The modern world‘s amazing
So different from when we grew up!
We Whatsapp‘d our next door neighbour
From the other end it of the world.
We asked them ‘check it out please‘
Our neighbours have a spare key.
First we turned our alarm off
From the other end of the world.
We’d no sooner sent the message
Than we got a WhatsApp call
And our wonderful next door neighbour
Adjusted the boiler as well.
They needed some more instruction
That we did via video call.
We guided them round
From the end of the world
With distance no problem at all.
It looked like a leak in the bathroom
Had caused the pressure to fall.
So we arranged a call by a plumber
From the other side of the world.
Now I am blogging about it
From a ship at the end of the world
And you are reading about it
From wherever on earth you are!
It’s not the world we grew up in
It’s a wonderful place to be.
We were far away with a problem
But it wasn’t the end of the world.
Postscript: Having drafted this I struggled to send it. An SSL error of some sort! Ironic?
What snack would you eat right now?
I guess it’s empanadas
We‘ve had a few of those.
Travelling the Chilean coast
With Argentina next.
Our last stop Punta Arenas,
Through Magellan Strait
Ushuaia is up next.
There’s empanadas everywhere
A Patagonian treat
It’s mostly made of pastry
A little pastie thing
But stuffed with meat or vegetable
And usually with cheese.
The very joy of travelling
Is trying different things
We‘ve had quite a few of these
But I’m up for something else.
Come up with a crazy business idea.
A poet bleeds and breaks his heart
Spills it out on paper
The reader spares a passing glance
And treats it like a favour.
All the anxt and heartbreak there
The intellectual labour
Keep your troubles to yourself
Or share them with a neighbour.
Spare a penny if you’re kind
Spare it for a busker.
Nothing for the poet though
Empty words and bluster.
Skip around the mulberry bush,
Dance and skip and caper.
Another poem in the book
Isn’t worth the paper.
Andrew Green's Poems 