ME and the WAY THAT I PERCEIVE THINGS
Strangely, oddly and probably in need of counselling!!!
Soliloquy to my Filofax
Why do I love my Filofax
What is that extra it can do
How does it help me to manage
When an auto search is taboo.
The feel of quality leather, firm
Smooth, and from the pocket warm
The strength, safety and protection
Of all my special data forms.
Very high quality paper
When using a fountain pen
Feels proper and the right way
To take time to note, but then,
Google can search all my data
And it can change it in a flash
But looking through a glass darkly
Is no way to savour your stash.
To slowly note it down
Gives time for thinking to your mind
Allows you to experience the feel
And just enjoy, to your body being kind.
Google can do it instantly
Can rush you on to the next test
But when you stop to think about it
The quick way is never the best
Rushing headlong into the future
Unsure about exactly where,
Is never going to achieve your aim;
Take time and Filofax to prepare.
Jacb Sep 2020 Feb 2021
Painting by Peter Westley
during an Art History trip to Vienna in 2015
MY BODY AND I
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I don’t think my body likes me and I am not sure I am so keen in it.
From the off It did not like me, and strange bedfellows we have become.
My body is shy, lazy, and weaker than I am, and it does not like
Acting in public or doing stuff and it’s certainly not energetic.
Its way out was to harbour an illness, making effort to find a cold
Shortly before an important event, putting a stop to “all that nonsense!”
As I began to defy my body, it took up offence against me,
It found other ways to get to me, by inventing different symptoms.
It generated symptoms slyly at about three-quarter strength.
“What do you make of that then”, it would ask not wanting a reply.
It made for me lots of aches and pains, in the right place, but not quite,
Just the right intensity, but not quite, and for not long enough.
I have to worry and look like I am taking it seriously.
Then my body gets bored with me again and takes them all away.
When the symptoms give me pain the easiest way to make them go is
A visit to the doctor; instantly they vanish on the telling.
My body’s favourite trick is to wait till I have opened the tin of paint
Dip the brush in and get paint on my hands then it makes my eyelids itch – like mad.
It can’t sit quietly – it fidgets requiring attention all the time,
Rubbing here and scratching there is what takes up all my body’s energy.
I am frightened of the outcome so I will continue to go to Pilates.
We have come to an arrangement, neither of us is giving in, I’m not, nor is it.
So we will see who gives in first, who takes the lead or who it is has the last laugh.
Whatever it is, it can’t do much without me and I can’t do much without it.
I would like to say I don’t like my body, but it is not it’s weight, shape or size,
Just its devious attitude towards me; but at least at the end it will compost.
JACB - Aug 2012 Oct 2019 Jan 2021 Feb 2021
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
He made the best of what he was given
Choosing carefully the dictate of fashion
He looked into the mirror and said, “Not bad.”
The mirror looked back and said, “How sad.”
He could not hear what the mirror said
Nor would he have listened if he could.
How great the fall from innocent height
When delusion is exposed to the light.
jacb May 2019
Who is this person “Subconscious”?
I woke the other morning with something new in my head.
It amazed me, that I was remembering something new,
Something in such strong colours as I woke and sat up in my bed.
Very deep and intense colours, of what I cannot remember.
I can remember the effect on my disturbed emotions,
Till I had to make morning tea and breakfast and stir the minds embers.
How could something so completely new be in my dream?
How did it get into my head without my knowing it?
Am I getting lazy, or am I not thinking through my input stream?
Could my subconscious be trying to take me over
By an illicit grab for power from me to itself?
How do I restore control of my mind and start thinking thoughts of my own?
Or do I give free reign over what it wants to think to my subconscious.
And let it develop the thoughts that interest it the most,
Letting me think that I am happily enjoying my own thoughts?
What we are aware of in our mind is a small part of
The ‘space of information’ represented in the brain.
What if we could control the use of that information?
Now that could be how I should try to write my poetry.
My subconscious giving me the idea, and I type it.
With clever rhyme and metre, or so I would like to think.
The Poetry Society Membership number: 207,155
Jacb Sep 2020
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Not a directed journey with a defined goal,
Other than, perhaps, delaying the end.
Just a slow ricochet from here to the next there,
And surprisingly with money to spend.
Being sensible, looking after, or avoiding family,
And not being too wild, just rational.
A meandering journey with some interesting interludes,
Difficulties and problems, nothing fatal.
Interesting occasionally, in retrospect, then routine.
Nothing earth shattering, but some gilt seeps in.
Too selfish for deep friendships, but grateful to have been well treated.
Wanted to have been some use to friends and kin.
The children are more than we dared hope for,
Generating pride with amazing partners.
Grandchildren who will capably take over.
Journey achieved?
jacb Jan 2020
The Aide De Camp’s Lament
I’m much better as an ADC.
Helping others to achieve their aim,
To really be what they want to be.
Even when they are so very wrong.
I can file and I can compute,
I can write and tidy the desk,
But when it comes to deciding,
I am not at my very best.
They can shout and order.
They always get things done.
I can only suggest,
But confuse ‘go’ and ‘come’.
One day I will hack it.
They will all be off out.
Asked for a decision,
I will make it come about.
Modern Fashion
My father when he got dressed to go out
He put on his tweed sports jacket
With a silk Paisley handkerchief
Adjusted smartly in the top pocket
When I get dressed if and when I do
I put on my tweed sports jacket
With a very light blue and white
Face mask peeping out of my top pocket.
HOW I STARTED OUT
I started out in Hewlett Road
Behind a low garden wall
That the yobs pushed over every night
Because of a drunken brawl.
I started out an only child
But when I was three years old
I become the older brother.
But I was not prepared to give up
My privileged position, Sorry Bro
I went to school on two buses
Changing in the town centre
Outside Cavendish House,
Opposite the Post Office I couldn’t enter.
Where have I got to now?
Nowhere near Cheltenham;
I have suffered from yobs,
I am back on the bus
But I’m still friends with my Bro.
SUMMER AT WORK
The best part of work was the trials,
Out on the plains of Canada’s mid-west,
With our military drone aircraft
Putting them all to the test.
The sun was hot,
The dust was high,
The craft assembled
And ready to fly.
Off it went into the blue sky,
Controlled by us on the ground.
The ‘spec’ it made in the sky got smaller
As it just would not turn round.
We saw it with Binoculars, only just.
We fiddled with the controller of flight.
The engineer cried I think it turned
And we managed to land it on site.
RELEIF!!!