At the exit

Jammed in the crush at the disco exit

and pressed against a pert young lady

whose cleavage I'd admired all evening,

I whispered to her how nice her breasts were.

She gave no acknowledgement or reaction

but her friend beside her got very upset -

"How dare you talk about my friend's breasts !

You should be ashamed of yourself, you arsehole !"

"It was meant as a compliment, nothing more.

Just like you've got very nice legs."

"Oh." She huffed and looked away.

The logjam shifted and we squeezed outside

like coloured toothpaste from the tube.

I watched them walk ahead of me

then went my usual own way home.

I hadn't noticed her legs before.

They weren't anything special.

So often the means is more important than the end. Trying to achieve something absorbs our energy and fills our time no matter how trivial the aim. In fact, most ambitions prove trivial in the end, our achievements rejected or excelled by our successors. He's a lucky man who dies knowing his contribution will last. But we need to fill our lives with something and doing the best we can at anything is means and end enough for happiness.

26p

I wrote a travelogue, studded with poems,
infatuation, sense of duty, jokes.
Then spent the next decade revising it
just like them London literary blokes.
At last I was ready to publish but
was the world ready to receive my gem ?
To my astonishment Kindle took it
swear words and all, root and stem.
So I waited in hope for it to flower
and eventually got my due come-uppance.
The payment advice arrived by e-mail -
in old money roughly five and tuppence.

She doesn't drive and so I fetch her

from her house that's miles away

in my car to suit her pleasure

and see the latest film or play.

But I drive home in desperation

since she doesn't let me stay

and think between our assignations

how does she get around ok.

I wonder if some other boyfriend

takes her in a posher car

and after some too boozy evening

somehow makes her go too far.

It makes me feel some sort of  'gopher'

and doesn't do much for my pride.

Although I'm certainly the chauffeur,

who's taking who for a ride?

A lengthy drive, two garages,

a cavernous hallway, grand reception,

spacious dining room and kitchen,

five bedrooms (one en suite) -

appropriate for a self-made man.

And yet the name of this splendid palace?

Welcome to ' Cosy  Cottage '

Both laugh at nothing : children at play
and old folk feeling life leak away.

Mature Singles Website - a male view

If not involved, it's easy to jeer
the coming out of looking for love -
so many ladies of fifty two
but fifty eight? so very few;
so many blondes (thanks to the bleach?)
enjoying sunsets, walks on the beach;
wanting comedians ('make me laugh'),
believing in chemistry and sparks;
everyone looking for someone younger
(good looks the key, not sexual hunger?);
the single photo, unrepeatable,
and, if you meet, unrecognisable -
yes, much to mock if happily married
but these were once as settled as you
and there is bravery indeed
in openly acknowledging a need.

Behind their ever optimistic profiles
are widows rising from the ashes of grief,
the wounded of divorce and separation,
the disadvantaged living incomplete.
Having survived the plague of mid-life trials
they now at least enjoy stress-free relief
though maybe scarred by past humiliation
through macho infidelity and deceit.

No wonder many women are distrustful
perhaps still bruised by previous disputes.
It's easy here to ignore suitors' antics,
delete the messages, withhold replies.
Magnanimously some deflect the lustful
with humour, knowing not all men are brutes
and, still remaining hopelessly romantic,
ease male hurt with sensitive white lies.

But men and women both must face dejection
as part and parcel of this sort of site.
Sentenced like me to solitary by their ages
(the future just a corridor of numbered cells)
and grown accustomed to one more rejection,
they might despondently accept their plight.
Women imprisoned guiltless by their faces
might well retreat into their hermit shells.

And yet there's always hope which keeps us going
although our web use may become addictive.
Until we've trawled through the entire nation,
New Users might have someone that's Viewed Me.
The Inbox has another message showing !
Fixing on one might turn out too restrictive.
Instead of getting off at the wrong station,
we'd best continue travelling hopefully.