I'd love to be able to retire

I'd love to be able to retire

without Putin setting fire

to the world and all we know

from his bunker in Moscow 

not to hear the heavenly choir

from a world left in a mier

as climate change abounds

our stupidity astounds

and how can there be no work

in the dark those millions lurk

but with millions with no jobs

and politicians with big gobs

nobody's paying tax

'chance for pension's looking lax...

but I'd love to be able to retire

in a place - somewhere to aspire

kids not armed with knives

but with skills to build their lives

so world wait 'til I retire

with my wife; we'll never tire

down in Cornwall having fun

our life's labours having done

and when our days run out

we together at rest no doubt

and with Putin awaiting his grave

and the climate yet to save

and politics still in a mess

and "AI" our God: I guess

and no jobs at all are left

 ...we won't feel bereft!

Questions which arise whilst on a train

Am I sat still whist the world flies by me?

Why don't the clouds move -  everything else seems to?

Maybe the clouds are just tears in a blue canvas?

Why is the track side going by faster than the distant hill tops?

Why is that child happy whilst the people having to stand seem so miserable?

Are we in a race with those cars?

Do the sun's rays want to be turned into electricity?

Is the right side of the train going faster than the left?

Do the arms of those pylons ever get tired?

Do those cows ever get tired of eating grass?

And why am I tired having been sat down for only an hour?

How new are all those 'new' cars?

How do seagulls hang in the sky?

And I wonder who lives in that big house?

...are we there yet?

(Haiku)

Squashed in on a train -

sardines would complain! Can I

hold onto this fart?

(Tanka) Sand

A handful of sand 

found in a shoe doesn't make 

a beach, but it might

resurrect lost memories 

of childhood visits to one!

(Tanka) Leaf-blowers

How is it that we 

exist, on a lump of rock, 

the perfect distance 

from a nice warm sun, yet we

go and invent leaf-blowers?

Plans

Is your head full of plans?

My head is always full of plans!

Plans to do the washing,

write poems,

and "where the hell are the delivery men?"

Stuff like that!

They spin around like the clothes in my new tumble dryer.

I'm very excited about my new tumble dryer!

One plan somehow clambers to the top of the pile,

and grabs my attention 

so I start down the road, 

of following that particular plan

and I forget all those other plans,

those that were previously tumbling around my head.

So what happend to all those other plans,

the ones that were previously,

filling my head,

the ones I forgot,

like - your plans to do the washing,

write poems,

and "where the hell are the delivery men?"

You become engrossed, following that one particular plan,

it was something you hadn't previously planned for,

and you forgot all the others - for now anyway,

until the tumble dryer in your head starts up again,

and another plan somehow clambers to the top of the pile,

and off we go again!

Oh why must life be so complicated?!