Headlines, karaoke and snowstorms

Never mind about change.
To even maintain your status quo there are going to be times when you have to yank every chain, pull every cord, mix up the sandstorm and let it settle one more time. Let it have another go.
It will never settle the same way twice.
Somewhere there will be an irregular pattern, a crook of light, somewhere there will be ...new.

The world outside is a globe, but the world inside is a snowglobe. We all have one. It shakes with every step, but it is steadiest at home on a mantelpiece, waiting a good old dust.
Pay no attention to it. Who needs a running commentary?
When you wear your heart on your sleeve, you put your snowglobe in your pocket.
When you settle, you gently place it down.
After all it wasn't meant to last. Nothing does. It was only a toy from a trip abroad. Best put it in the attic and leave it there.

Or....

Don't.

Pan for riches instead.
Rake and sift through the debris and look for a new opportunity, maybe a glimpse or glitter of gold. But as every miner 49er knows it's often turns out to be fool's gold. And the only thing you end up rich in is metaphor.

So you wash your pan and scoop again like a gigantic mechanical arm mining up the atoms of the atmosphere and letting the clouds slip through your fingers trying to catch one perfect drop of rain.
Avoiding the thought that you affect the world you interfere with. Your presence changes it. Your attention alters it. Your  touch can destroy it. You have to be gentle.

Sometimes life is a pocket snowstorm.
Sometimes it's a pocket orchestra, waiting with baton aloft to shuffle up another tune.
Why not join in when you know the words or like the licks? Karaoke's fun, (a survey said).

When you're out of energy and the devil of destiny knocks, you'll still need to draw on something.
It's something that will define your security, your anxiety and neediness and ultimately the most important quality of you.
But do you know what it is?
Do you know how you'll react when the chips are down?
I'm guessing you do.
Somewhere.
Because you've done it before a million times. That's why you're still here fighting with the rest of us.
You'll fall back on old patterns, old songs, old books, new books, new songs, tried and tested comforts, nicotine, the lottery, a DVD set, a radio channel, the book, a bottle, a walk.
And if you're British probably a drink and a chat.
That's fairly functional.

But you might go rogue this time.
You might go dysfunctional.
You might steal that DVD set, smash that radio, tear up that book, drink a crate of bottles, smoke something more interesting, bet the farm and walk into trouble, into a fight, into a police cell or into a newspaper.
Good luck with that.
It might well work for you.

You have to know your own headlines.

And know where to stand to catch your own snowstorms.

Pause for Thought

I just went for a little walk round the block.
You know, stretch the legs.

The church green looked so lovely in the evening sun, the lanky oaks leaning protectively over the spring daffodils. And I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice to pause awhile, rest and enjoy a sip or two of sauvignon blanc in the company of the cool air and the lengthening shadows of the evening sun.

Then I thought to myself.
Man drinking booze on his own on a park bench.
Perhaps not.

It's a thin line.
Isn't it?

A Hundred Years Today

It's ticker tape and wave-you-off
And steer on straight ahead
A throng of hope and appetite.
In wait, the ocean bed.

Oblivious oblivion
Titanically leering
From a wall of glass,
And a deathly mirror
Titanically sneering.

The band played on
And a thousand tears
Turned to millions more
A legacy of error
Asleep on ocean floor.

Evitable endings
Titanically leer
As walls of glass,
And deathly mirrors
Titanically sneer.

The Cost of Living

With all this talk of hosepipe bans, what am I supposed to use to syphon the unleaded from next door's Vauxhall now?

Cover Me

You e-mail me every day
You sound like you care
My well-being's at the top
Of your agenda

You're just in reach
But you're never near
Am I anything to you
But legal tender?

You're my Queen of the Jungle
My east and west
I couldn't stand
If there was another

But I'm fully signed up
And I've made my choice.
I love you, Sheena
At Flexicover

Colour Code

I had a game of chess today.
We set up the pieces but apparently, according to the so-called rules, I wasn't allowed to have the first move.
I had to ask...
"Is it because I'm black?"

You Know You're Getting Old When...

...you sign off on your letters and e-mails with the words "Many Thanks".

Many Thanks? Really?

Honestly, who speaks like that?
George VI?
It's not so much Wallace and Mrs Simpson as Wallace and Gromit.
What happened to me?

I'm off to Boots. They have a new range of age-defying eye toner I need to try.
Maybe I'll start gargling with it.

Bad Poetry

Why do radio voices need to read poetry as though they are haunted, leering
over the words, oilily
creeping over their fake relish. With smug pride
they grease their lecture with subjective
power, diluted
by the arrogance of a personal offering of insight. Adding
a soft American accent
the thin veil of "known" is securely parcelled.
But not revealed
except to followers.
Never upgrading their chosen selection.
Peddling a product
with no user connection.

Fold 1

A rogue patient today offered to "tear me a new one".
Looking forward to it.

I love origami.

In praise of the part timer.

I've always admired the part timer, not the cheeky wastrel who does a mediocre job on the back of large amounts of invisibility, but the multi-limbed polymorph, the learned hydra (one for the classics scholar) who can drop into any situation, acquit it, acquit themselves, and quit.

Someone who can flit yes, but not a fly-by-night.
Someone who can swoop, act while hovering and fly off.
Someone who can act yes, but not make a performance of everything.
Someone who can make a performance, but only when such a thing is called for.
Someone who is as rounded as a well oxygenated red.

Work is life.
Not to work, not to be useful, is not. It's cancer for the young unemployed.
Work can give you self-respect. But it can also take it unless you broaden your options. It grips your identity, imposes its walls, puts a face (or two) to your fears and slowly tightens the screw.
It describes your need and possessions and quantifies your hopes, dreams and holidays.
If you let it.... it owns you.
And if it envelops you, then you may lose your self.
Or just forget to develop self in the first place.

So give a cheery nod to the part timer and say a quirky "hello there" to its bigger brother, the portfolio renaissance man.
Oh... and woman, of course.

After all, this can't all be about me.