I’m Thinking: A Dialogue

A.   Don’t interrupt me when I’m thinking.
B.   What about?
A.  You wouldn’t want to know.
B.   Why?  Is it a secret?
A.   Could be.
B.   Tell me.
A.   Wouldn’t be a secret if I did.
B.   Now you intrigue me.
A.   Secrets are for keeping to yourself.
B.   Who says?
A.   That’s the definition of a secret.
B.   But if you tell me I won’t tell anyone.
A.   If I do tell you it won’t be a secret any more.
B.   But only you and I will know.
A.   But then someone else might ask you to tell them.
B.   But I won’t tell them.
A.   But that’s what you said to me.
B.   I did?
A.   Yes … And then you told me.
B.   Did I?
A.   Oh!
B.   It’s no secret that you can’t keep a secret, you know.
A.   Is it?
B.   How do you know that?
A.   It’s a secret.
B.   Tell me.
A.   No,
B.   Why?
A.   It wouldn’t be a secret if I did.

 

Words Give Life Its Wings

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Tell me what you now remember
of what you said just last December
in one ear and out the other
can’t recall
cannot bother
it’s not uncommon
soon forgotten

But that’s now past
sorry I asked
for words will come
and words will go
they may not last
may lose their meaning
become unclean
become what they
weren’t meant to mean

Stay with the thought
you really ought
forever let them
ebb and flow
come to me
and let them go
for that they do
they wax and wane
they come again
often prone to outlive their stay
maybe then to fade away

Yes
hold that thought
and let it thrive
forever may it stay alive
it came to me in just a flash
even those pure balderdash
may be remembered
some dismembered
some misbegotten
others forgotten

But do not fear
lend me your ear
‘cos, right or wrong
words do live on
in speech and song
alive or lost
twisted and tossed
such living things
give life its wings

The Future

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Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com

The future
will never be
as we envisage it.

That fact is a given
a constant
by which we will fall
if we do not recognise
its truth
and act accordingly.

Hope
and aspiration
may well prop up
the present,
but they
are not the answer
to that ultimate question –

‘What does the future
hold in store

for me?

for us?’

 

 

 

 

Night Fears

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The night has its fears,
It is fraught with mistrust;
I lie in a mist,
My mind swathed in dust.

When sleep will not come,
When rest is denied,
My mind is a playground,
Sense cast aside.

Struggling with thoughts,
Unbidden, intense;
A barrage of cares
That hardly make sense.

Then fears invade, 
Not something I sought.
What happened to reason,
To logical thought?

So I wait for the morning,
The return of the light,
To banish the tension 
And put fears to flight. 

The Brain is a Lonely Place

‘The Brain is a Lonely Place’ – WHB: Pen & Wash Dec.2017   

 The brain is a lonely
whispering place
Tended solely by me
No one else can be allowed
To trespass on this hallowed ground

It is forever mine to keep
Forever secret
Shy
Demure
Locked and sealed
Never revealed

The home of thought
Of hopes
Of passion
Never in
nor out of fashion

Existing solely
to be just me
My being’s essence
My life’s one key.

And so
As life approaches death
It concentrates on what it is
That is about to cease to be
Concluding only
Whatever is lost
It will be for others to count the cost

 

[ My apologies if the ‘approaching death’ phrase which I use in the last verse startles anyone.   Hopefully, I am thinking in generalised terms, and projecting into the long term.  Well – we are all doing just that from the moment we are born – are we not!? ]

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