LIFE AND THINKS
Poems about my thoughts on what we are and why we are here
TRANSFORMATION
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Transformation is in the physics.
Entropy demands it so.
No going back to the beginning.
Change has only one way to flow.
A journey is not a transformation.
You’ll not be changed on your voyage.
You will still be you when you arrive
Even if you are emotionally ‘off the page’.
There’s a transformation in evolution.
A native ‘family’ in the undiscovered
Transforms to a ‘group of individuals’
In the west, the link completely severed.
Transformation is a butterfly,
Chrysalis left behind.
Transformation is a chicken,
No longer by its egg defined
My transformation will eventually come,
With a crash into death’s door,
Dropping a whirlwind of my papers,
Desperate that my writings don’t go ignored.
THE LESSER LOSS
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The Bees don’t think like me or you
They just do what they have to do.
If their hive is under threat,
They will sting and sting and yet,
It will kill them, not just chafe,
But their hive is, for now, safe.
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Is that what the young lad meant.
Made to sign up by the government
In the First World War, to serve.
Or did he hope he’d not need the nerve
To meet the enemy head on.
Or the need to make that decision.
The Hero is lost to us.
But safe are we all.
The Hero protected us
What ere to him did befall.
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PERSUASION
Come thou unto me,
Come fall into my arms.
Relax and enjoy my embrace,
Feel my warmth and my charms.
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There are other chairs.
This house is full, but yet
With plastic, and wood
But none compare to my velvet.
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I am not hard and square
Nor round and pretentious,
But framed and upholstered,
The essence of luxurious.
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Come thou unto me,
Come fall into my arms
Forget all the others,
Know my warmth and my love.
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Triggered by Christopher Marlow's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"
BEES
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The hive is filled by a swarm of bees
Making good their luxurious home.
The Queen is very well ensconced,
And the bees behave as they’ve always done.
But some having survived the move
Are concerned about their life.
They want to get all the workers together
To remove from their lives all their strife.
One of them has suggested a meeting
To discuss his swarm of ideas.
He wants to propose a democracy
To the multitude of his peers.
All the work is done by the women.
The ‘Workers’ by any other name
The males lie about all the day
Being intimate with their Queen.
They wanted to change all that
Make the males do more of the work.
But where is the drone’s incentive
To change their luxurious perk.
They just happened to be born into it,
But that does not make it right.
Maybe they should change their sex
And work themselves morning to night.
To work from dawn to dusk
Is not a change incentive.
But it might be when there is no food
And you are thrown out of your hive
And how could a worker girl
Ever fertilise her Queen?
Or laze about in the hive all day,
And to the flowers never to have been
We must have a meeting
And sort all this out without harm.
Either should be able do what they want
Take any place in their swarm.
So who can decide the changes?
Should a plan on, what, when and how,
Be agreed by a vote of the hive
To decide how it all goes from now.
Is this what Xi is trying to prevent?
Is this the way that things should be done?
Is this our chance of a new life
Or are we voting ourselves into dung?
Who Are We?
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I put on you something you may not be able bare,
A knowledge of the right thing to do.
And the self-discipline to do it.
Or is it the fear of punishment if it is not done?
The self-discipline to do it.
Even if it’s just an attitude to be held,
Rather than an immediate quick reaction.
Something that must be done right now.
Even though, it brings an emotional stiffness,
And a good feeling of self-worth.
And perhaps more deeply, anger
At the loss of self will and what I want to do.
This anger, when you are suppressed,
Brings a frightening and an obeyed façade.
A presence, gloat of achievement
and associations to be envied.
Except that they are not.
They are deep down hated6
For being so alike
A reflection of the hated self.
Without her innocent love
It would all be meaningless.
When does the wanted break come,
How does it come, the way out?
Jacb 2019
LIFE ON ICE
Could be set in North Alaska, Greenland, Baffin Island
Is tonight the night to speak to my father
Can I broach my frightening thoughts?
Have I found something that could change our lives,
Or have I got it all wrong?
Father I need to speak to you now.
I think I have found something good.
Last month when I went out I got lost
And found a strange and different place.”
I went too far searching for our food,
Food that the reindeers need right now.
I went further south than I had been before
And saw a new landscape, somewhere good.
The ice was thinner and the snow wet,
My coat was heavy, and I was hot.
There was lakes of water, plants and trees
And many edible berries and seeds.
I had never seen this before.
Forgive me trying and getting lost
And riding so far to the south
There was no danger and it looked good
I know son, I have been there myself,
But I just could not tell you about it.
This place is where we are borne, live and die
Not somewhere else that we are not part of.
What! - You never told us. We struggle here.
Fighting the cold and the wind to find food,
To force ourselves to work till we are spent,
And live here and there under a thin skinned tent.
How do we benefit from staying here on ice?
We don’t use the word cold as a disadvantage
It’s just the way it is, just the place we exist
Can’t we trade with others exchange effort for goods
What if we trade bricks, timber, vegetables, horses, wheels?
No my son, we don’t need wheels on ice we have fast sledges.
We don’t need vegetables when we have seal flesh
Leave things as they are as they have always been..
Jacb Dec 2020
NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN IN AN EMPTY ROOM
(Because the moment you cross the threshold you destroy the emptiness that you sought)
The hermit in his cold cave prays
He contemplates alone
Sits there in total silence
Looking out o’er the valley of stone.
The shower cubical is my prayer cell.
Hot water in constant supply
As it noisily rains down upon me
I think about life, but get no reply.
Opportunities missed and times enjoyed,
People offended, and laughs shared
Offence taken, and pleasure experienced
Love felt, and beauty experienced.
Where do we go from here,
How do I make sense of it,
What do I leave for them,
How do I tidy my life for it?
Arhh! but it won’t be today though,
too much trivia to live through.
JACB 2014 and November 2019 and April 2021
THE CORDUROY SHIRT
Corduroy – “The cloth of the king”
The corduroy shirt is so very strange.
I can’t decide if it is too cool, or too hot.
It makes life difficult to put on a jumper,
And easily catches crumbs or takes a spot.
A corduroy shirt is warm but self-willed.
Rough and thick, in wear it gets rucked.
Like most of my clothes it is serviceable,
But rides up, slips down, comes untucked.
The corduroy shirt has old country links,
Shooting and fishing and the countryside walk.
Maybe that’s why it doesn't fit in here,
Except to the man with his garden fork.
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Jacb Jan 20 Apr 21
THE PENCIL (with a rubber on top)
My new pencil is brown and black and red
Long and full of things to be said
You guide it round the page from edge to side
In lines, or not, along reasons ride
JACB September 2015
in Brussels about a pencil bought at the Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight