DINKY

"Single or return?" the clerk enquired.
"What do you mean - 'return' ?",  I said,
"The journey's all one-way and straight ahead.
We can't come back when we've expired."

"Sorry." she said, "I didn't make it clear.
Of course you can't be born anew
but what you can do is to make the view
of life when you were young appear

again."
           "What ! Why would we do that?  We're not
just kids. We're adult and enjoy
the perks of middle age . . . . "
                                             "But they will cloy !
Age makes both brain and body rot

and makes your life a motorway to death,
careering down the fast lane, freed
(you think) from all the fines for too much speed.
The scenic route gives pause for breath."

"Now look here, lady ! What gives you the right
to lecture me on how to spend
my life? Just you watch out or you'll offend
my wife who does that job each night !"

"Sorry again," she said, "but I don't see
that you have children anywhere.
Without them life is just a single fare
but with them you repeatedly

return, through children and grandchildren too,
to wonder born of innocence.
Such joy surpasses pounds and pence.
Consider while there's time, your wife and you."

Perhaps the clerk was more than what she seemed;
in the room behind, her sister spun
a thread; another measured what she'd done;
beside her, well worn scissors gleamed.

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."  -  T.S.Eliot

It's not so much reality that we can't bear
(we wrestle with it every day)
but more that here and now are not enough;
we have a need for something to look forward to.

Our everyday concerns leave little time to spare;
we fill the gaps with gossip and the news and share
the weather. There are times though when our thoughts will stray
to what we want to have and do and in what way
we can achieve our ends. The future is the stuff
of dreams but dreams must be made real instead of bluff
so when no future's left, we can enjoy anew
the memories of the life that we look backward through.

Tweets -1

         Not voyeur but auditeur.

         ------------------------------

Embarrassing noises heard from high,

the rumbling and moans from planes in the sky

Attractive only as taboo,

elsewise an uninviting view,

when spread so flappy vulgar -

a woman's precious vulva.

      Elderly widows

They'd like to have young,

they'd like to have rich.

If they can't have both,

the problem is which.

Wimbledon Men's Singles Final

---------------------------------------

Centre court is the place to be

but the view is better on TV.

MY  WIFE

When I also certainly die

I will have eternity

to patiently, carefully search for you

floating somewhere among the stars.