I’ll attempt the lottery – if I can not lose

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

There’s no sense of achievement

If you can not fail

Like those superhero films

Where heroes always win.

You need a chance of failure

To get joy from success

There’s little point in playing games

If you know you’ll always win.

But then again – the Lottery!

A prize you don’t deserve

I’ll definitely buy a ticket

If I know I can not lose!

It wouldn’t be a challenge

But I could live with that.

To use the money wisely;

Challenge enough in that.

There’s surely satisfaction

In helping others out

Some sense of achievement

In knowing who needs what.

So yes ok the lottery

I’ll get that ticket now

Shame for all the other folk

Because the winner’s me!

The hardest goal I set myself I never did achieve

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

The hardest goal I set myself

I never did achieve

A marathon in sub 3 hours

Was at one time my aim.

I took it very seriously

Would follow six month plans

Build my weekly mileage up

To sixty miles a week.

I’d study all the training plans

For stamina and speed

Watching what I had to eat

And getting proper sleep.

I had a few attempts at it

And mostly did OK

But 3.15 the best for me

And sadly that won’t do.

I gave up running marathons

When I couldn’t beat four hours

I have gentler running aims

Now I’m seventy two.

I still like to push myself

But have more modest aims

I still aim for 8 minute miles

But now for just 5k.

Pre Raphaelites my call

Who are your favourite artists?

The Lady of Shalott – John William Waterhouse, 1888

Art to me means painting

Pre Raphaelites my call

The posters in the 70s

We’d have upon our wall.

The brilliant vibrant colours

Bold romantic themes

Dreamy looking heroines

Broody armoured Knights.

Marianna – John Everett Millais, 1851

The paintings bring back memories

Of distant student days

Of musty flats and long haired blokes

And girls in flowery clothes.

The Hireling Shepherd, William Holman Hunt, 1851

Impressive in their detail

The characters so strong

Rejecting muted colours

The dull restraint of old.

Hylas and the Nymphs – John William Waterhouse, 1896

Love, beauty, tragedy

Their story always strong

Romantic and emotional

They had us in their pull.

La Belle Dame Sand Merci – Frank Dicksee

These were the paintings

I loved in my youth.

I still love to study them

They have me in their thrall.

But sadly they no longer fit

In to our modern rooms

They wouldn’t look right in our house

Our cooler ‘Scandi’ style.

But as for favourite artists

I will always say

Three cheers for the Brotherhood

And those who followed on.

Running is my hobby – I think I’ve said before!

What is your favourite hobby or pastime?

Running is my hobby

I think I’ve said before!

Repetitive these daily prompts

They’re making me a bore!

What is left that I can say

Bout what I love to do.

I’m less quick than I used to be

But still can so I do.

It gets me out in the fresh air

It gives me thinking time.

Helps me know I’m still alive

Still fit at seventy two.

Others of a similar age

Recount their aches and pains.

I’m much happier up and out

I’ll run while I still can.

I try to be competitive

With others of my age

First one over 70

Is usually my aim.

I get out several days a week

Run 5 or else 10k

Not my former mileage

But I run along ok.

Once a week I’m with a club

For intervals and such

Saturdays is ParkRun

Enjoy those runs a lot.

I’ve given up on marathons

They’d take me far too long.

I’m happy doing shorter runs

10k’s plenty now.

Things I Do In My Spare Time – the T Shirt

When I am not running

I think of it a lot

My wife got me a t shirt

That shows you what she thinks.

I think possessions own us and not the other way.

What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

I think possessions own us

And not the other way.

We‘re desperate to protect what’s ours

And, if we can, get more.

They say if you’d be perfect

You should give it all away.

The secret of eternal life

Is to sell it for the poor.

It’s not a sermon preached much

We all know the score.

Possessions mean too much to us.

We can not let them go.

We‘re happy to say ‘freedom’

Means nothing left to lose

But these are empty words because

It’s never what we choose.

Sadly it can happen

And it all gets ripped away

But hand on your heart

Can you truly say

It wouldn’t get to you.

I think that you’d be consumed still

By all the things you’d lost

Could you simply walk away

Or would they still own you?

I think there’d be a period

You’d simply be in shock.

Robbed of our possessions

What is left of us?

We‘re ruled by our possessions

They tell us who we are

Or sometimes when we cling to things

Remind us who we were.

The truth is that the less you have

The less there is to lose.

Imagine being super rich

Perhaps they live in fear.

Where to park their luxury car

Safely berth their yacht

Stash away their jewellery

Protect what they have got?

Once I had a fantasy

Of never owning much

What goes in a rucksack

And that would be enough.

It’s sadly not realistic

We all know that it’s not.

There’s always reasons we want more

We never have enough.

I find indeed I still cling on

To stuff I do not need.

For what I have is who I am

And I can’t let it go.

At eighteen I knew everything….

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

At eighteen I knew everything

My mind was quite made up.

I’d worked things out, I understood

And my ideas were right.

I had little sympathy

For people not like me

I had everything worked out

Why could they not see?

I was law abiding

Did very little wrong

But sadly so judgemental

With little love in me.

I learned I had to loosen up

And live my life a little

We get things wrong

We make mistakes

And should forgive each other.

Now I am much older

There’s plenty I’ve screwed up.

I’ve travelled round the world a bit

My eyes are opened up.

There are so many stories

So many different lives.

I can‘t know what they’re dealing with

Or understand each life.

I’ve learned to be more tolerant

To know that just like me

We‘re all flawed individuals

But each in different ways.

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.