Colin 2

 

Another Colin, seemingly as nuts,

As him whom I have spoken of before,

Same hospital, but on a different ward,

Whose mouth, once opened, never after shuts

To stem the sales pitch one can’t ignore,

The patter packed away and safely stored

For just such an event as this day seems,

He’s lying down, but in his mind he struts,

Before a willing audience he must not bore,

And to be truthful, none of us is bored,

When listening to his well remembered streams

Of knowledgeable chatter which relates

To printers and to copying machines.

He truly knows his stuff and must appeal

Not just to us, but those who count the beans,

And so statistics creep into the mix,

Which more than mere anecdote reveal

The era which he’s speaking of. He states

Them with such confidence and dates

Thereby his time of ‘usefulness’ when dreams

Were not allowed and truly never sought,

Except where they would help to spur him on

To greater sales figures which themselves 

Were more than just sufficient a reward,

Although, of course the bonus pay was good,

He did not work this way against his will,

One senses that his patter was his fix.

He did not need incentives for he’d gone

Into this market gap in depth and thought

It satisfying simply in itself 

This real need to cater for, fulfil,

And thus he spoke of what he understood.

But what is comprehension of this sort?

A life of dedication to a cause

That has no greater purpose, yet improves

The working days of others who care naught

For plain men such as him, whose long soliloquies,

Delivered with good humour, without pause,

For forty years perhaps, had kindly brought

Them the ability to undertake 

Their daily tasks with ease. Faciloquies

Is not a word, but that is what we heard,

By accident because of some anomalies 

Within the ageing brain, these monologues 

Designed and much rehearsed, to sell such tools

As make life simple for such other fools,

As drudge in offices and make facsimiles.

Now Colin lies in bed, in summer heat,

And blethers on, repeat, repeat, repeat.

West Yorkshire Apples

 https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127309028?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

I don’t know why I think of it,

But when I see a photograph

Of Heptonstall or Hebden Bridge,

I think of how the apples taste,

Grown on ground of some hard ridge,

Of peaty moor and stony waste,

And how the sun goes out of sight,

Behind the hills at some young hour,

And almost taste their deep-green sour.

And how I cheer myself and laugh

To think I live upon the plain,

Where children dwell beneath a sky

Where sun, once up, can then remain,

Pouring down its ripening light,

It's kindly warmth or burning heat,

Unless it's covered by a cloud,

That takes its time in drifting by,

And how the apples seem to crowd

On ancient trees and look as bright

As they are sweet.

And like them, feel the need to cleave,

 And know I never wish to leave.

 

Not Trivial

 The dead can’t feel the warm wind from the south,

Across the skin that shivers not, yet feels

And sends a pleasant message to the mouth,

About the lovely time of year which then reveals

The shallow mind belonging to our flesh.

And yet how terrible to know no more

The warm wind on us, or the cold and fresh,

Then hear the mindless comments of each pore

Or follicle responding to the air,

By pouring out a little salty sweat

Or rising up and bristling a hair.

If we could know when we were dead, regret,

I think we might express it all together

In philosophical discussion of the weather. 

Colin

 

It was all such an unlikely tale,

A made up, wishful confabulation,

You were just another elderly male,

Sad, lost, making the kind of conversation

Men of your age and social station,

Are wont to make, feeble banter, bound to fail,

We did not trust the words that were spoken

By your sort, 

And your chatter made everything fraught.

Friday tea time suggested fish and chips

And you’d overheard a recommendation,

A new place in town, 

Or was it merely imagination?

You saw yourself running down,

In your flimsy, open-backed hospital gown,

And placing your Friday night order,

For inmates whose hearts and minds and hips

Were broken.

A generous, fatty, battered round,

For though demented your soul was sound,

And then you remembered your former life,

And thought of your clothes and your car,

And you spoke about your wife,

Lovely, kind and giving,

And none of us believed her living,

Though you used the present, ‘is’ and ‘are’.

We felt sad and looked at the floor,

Thought of the man you had been before,

But knew by your vacant eyes,

Your words were self comforting lies,

Felt something like despair,

Then Brenda walked in at the door!

And Brenda was realer than real,

Though certainly a creation,

Brenda was just what was needed,

Brenda it seemed had succeeded,

In being all the things any man would adore,

Cheerful, jolly, with sex appeal,

Warm of heart and mind and large of bust,

Dressed in red, with bleach blonde hair,

Still married and without disgust. 

On cognitive dissonance (the lack thereof in some obvious hypocrites)

 

Why is no vibration beating

In your dull and muddled mind?

Why do no alarm bells ring,

At your contradictory bleating?

Cognitive dissonance, just not a thing?

Ah yes,

I guess,

It’s when you’re Tweeting

That you speak from your behind.

And in your rectum there is no cognition,

Only a single, narrow ambition,

To expel the crap and the stinking gas,

From where it's been brewing in the store,

And this you do, and express no contrition,

Because it’s valued as rich manure,

By fellow members of your class.

 

I Wish to Chat to A Mushroom

 

I wish to chat to a mushroom,

To tell it all my woes,

I’d confide in its ancient wisdom,

And ask it what it knows.

But I fear it would not understand me,

Would gossip and tell of my fears,

Through its endless mycelium channels

That sprout from its mushroom toes.

I wish to chat to a mushroom,

I wish it would lend me its ears,

But when you confide in a toadstool

Who knows where your secret goes?

I suspect they are less dependable,

Than all the whisperin’ grass,

And their thoughts would be depressing,

And felt as a great morass,

Of damp and dark and breaking down

And a musty smell in the nose.

For although it’s a fruiting body,

It’s only the bit that shows,

And the rest of it’s complex and murky,

And it prattles away as it grows.

 

Will it add value, or make it more saleable?

Were I to acquire

A stuffed pike, 

Would it add value,

If I put it

In the downstairs loo?

Is it the sort of thing people like? 

Would it make people aspire,

To a certain lifestyle,

Or put people off, 

Because it’s vile? 

I don’t mean actually in the bog,

Of course,

I mean on top of the chiffonier,

To hide a scratch in the veneer.

Would people think 

I’m a huntin’ shootin’ and fishin’ toff,

All about horse,

And dog,

Or a liar?

Would it distract from the chip in the tile,

Above the sink?

What about a crystal chandelier,

Or two,

Are they more tarty than arty?

Or a pair of fauteuils, Louis Quinze or Seize,

Either side of the fire,

Would that make it seem like a des. res.?

Or should one go the whole hog,

A gilt salon suite,

Would it go with a club fender?

Would that show

I was the right kind of vendor?

Someone cultured, in the know?

Would such things complete

The impression

That this is a home of good taste,

And each possession

Treasured, inherited, long ago?

And could I then sell with Inigo?