P.S.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Mickey Mouse! How can it be 

That you have aged much better than me?

At 77 I find years weighty,

But you still look superb at 80!

Listing!

LISTING!

When your Ship of Life is listing

And likely to capsize,

And Sleep wont pay a visit

Even though you close your eyes

You must take heed of a trick of mine

That, maybe, you have missed.

It's that all-important, self-destructing,

Ever-decreasing  List.

I, too, my friends, have tossed and turned

And thrashed about in bed,

Thinking of things that must be written,

Telephoned or read.

Imagining the chaos

That will fall about my ears

When the next day dawns and I'm caught out!

It's sure to end in tears.

Get out of bed and take a pen

And write your 'Things to Do'.

Already you'll feel better;

I know, for sure, it's true.

There may be fifty items,

Or even fifty-six!

But seeing them in black and white

Makes them a cinch to fix!

Now number them. Find Number One,

The MOST IMPORTANT task.

And follow it with two, then three.

It's not too much to ask.

Now, there and then, be resolute

And concentrate your mind

On that vital Number One alone!

And I know that you will find

That, already, you feel better,

For your tired brain's been tricked!

It thinks you've only one concern!

The Number One you've picked!

Decide on a course of action

Then cross that devil out!

You'll feel that you've achieved your goal

Without the slightest doubt.

Go back to bed, exhausted.

You've wrestled with your life,

But now you're tired and satisfied

Not full of stress and strife.

Try this little ruse of mine!

Don't end up round the twist!

Write that all-important, self-destructing,

Ever-decreasing List.

Distant No More

DISTANT NO MORE

Time, which was once a wide, unbounded sea,

An ocean stretching far into a dream,

Is now down at my feet, a little stream,

The 'distant shore' now very near to me.

When, as a child, I viewed eternity,

And saw the water's brilliant colours gleam,

'Forever' was a very simple theme,

Unending time a certain destiny.

But, now, one step is all I need to take

To cross the stream and reach the other side.

How is it that Forever's shrunk so small?

That step, will it be very hard to make?

And, at the last, will Time once more seem wide?

And will I ever understand it all?

Extra! Extra!

My artist friend, Margaret Gosden, in New York, has asked me comment on her 'Janus' art-work, in verse. My cropping has been less than successful but maybe the poem will capture something for her.

THE NOW

How to capture the Now.

It does not exist.

As soon as one says the word

 Now has become Then.

 Janus looks to the past.

 Janus looks to the future.

And, in between, nothing,

Try to isolate that seeming line

And it will prove itself to be

Thin air.

There is nothing between past and future,

Except Now.

And Now does not exist.

All we can do is try to capture it,

In a poem,

Or a print.

With artificial thumb tacks

We can pin it down

As word or paint.

And say

'Gotcha!'

198. A Bee in My Bonnet!

Some of you will understand  this poem! If you do, don't give your age away!

A BEE IN MY BONNET!

Do you recall the Beehive? No, not the one with bees?

But the 1960s hair-do, requiring a lot of 'tease'!

My hair was always whispy and body-less and fine,

But Beehives were the fashion so, of course, I made it mine!

But the struggle and the anguish simply can't be overstated!

The visits to the salon which were frequent and much-hated;

The sitting in the chair as pretty hairdressers tut-tutted,

And their remarks, so critical, which made me feel quite gutted.

'If Modom had more hair' they'd say, 'We'd be able to produce

Something elegant and smart, but, in your case, what's the use?'

'I must look like my friends!' I'd cry 'A poor workman blames his tools!

Modom wants a Beehive! Supply it! Them's the rules!

The customer is always right! So go ahead! Beehive me!

Be creative! Something grand is what you must contrive me!'

And so they duly went ahead, with shampoo, and with rinse,

And a lot of other 'condiments' I haven't noticed since!

Once washed, my little bit of hair lay limply on my head,

Until the wretched rollers made it wide and high instead.

Then came the awful dryer, and a scalp all burning hot,

But a Beehive would be my reward so I didn't mind a jot.

Back-combing! Is it done these days? It's a wonder we survived it!

But hair demanded torture as the hairdresser Beehived it!

The hair was, first, teased one way, and then, as Modom cursed,

The whole revolting process was immediately reversed.

Now all the in-between hair was tangled, knotted, matted,

And the net-result was Modom looking very woolly-hatted!

Now the clever part! A few stray strands, left longer and still pliable,

Were spread out over all the mess and made to look reliable.

Indeed, when it was smoothed and glossed, it really looked a treat,

Like some enormous hairy egg, quite good enough to eat.

Now for the spray and do not think I'm talking of a puff.

Great streams of it for evermore it seemed were not enough!

At last came the displaying, with triumphant shouts of glee,

And the most excited person there was Beehived little me!

I was modern, I was 'with it',( though we didn't use that phrase.)

I paid the pretty hairdresser and heaped great songs of praise.

I peered then, at the outside world, was it a little wet?

If so, I'd need the plastic bonnet one dared not forget!

I'd hurry home before the nasty elements could play

Fast and loose with my great hair, and ruin my whole day.

There followed then a week of care, of lying stiff in bed,

Making sure that nothing spoilt the glory on my head!

( I didn't need a 'headache', my hair had other uses;

I didn't need to parrot any other old excuses!)

Of course, I didn't wash it! Just the lightest surface brush,

And a patting into place of all the bits that I might crush.

But, inevitably, bits began to flop and droop and sag!

By the ending of the week I was a hide-in-the-cupboard hag!

Come Saturday I'd have to go through all the whole routine,

So that I could strut about as the local Beehive Queen!

Was ever there a torture so designed to lay us low?

Did everybody suffer as I did I want to know!

My hair today is flat and fine, and 'doing its own thing'.

It doesn't mind a rainy day or the breezes battering.

I'm so delighted it's no more, that silly fashion craze!

Whoever coined lying words and said

THE GOOD OLD DAYS?

197. A Strange Illusion

ESCHER

Written for SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS, the topic of which is 

STRANGER.

Well, I can't think of a much stranger world than the one depicted!

A STRANGE ILLUSION!

Stranger than fiction! 

Here we see a picture that amazes!

Stairs going up, then going down, 

All ending up in mazes.

A man is walking underneath 

A flight of stairs. it seems,

And doors, all sideways, lead outside,

Where we feel there should be beams!

A man walks up towards a door 

That's tilted on its side,

And I see dark corners where grey men

Can scuttle in and hide.

These faceless creatures move about

Like an hallucination;

Are they going up or down?

Where is their destination?

A man sits on an upright wall,

But he doesn't lose his balance!

It's clear to see these faceless men 

Have never-ending talents!

This is the stuff of nightmares

I feel that I'm delirious!

It's just the oddness of it all

That sense of the mysterious.

We humans like things as they are,

We don't much care for change,

And down as up and up as down

Makes us feel distinctly strange.

Looking at this picture

Makes me feel quite odd and queasy,

Out of sorts, a little faint,

And terribly uneasy.

An optical illusion?

That gives a designation;

But it doesn't really quite explain

My physical sensation.

If I found myself in such a world

I'd feel in mortal danger!

To such a strange and dangerous place

I'd like to remain

A Stranger! 

Where were You?

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN.......?

I remember, I remember the time when he was born.

I know exactly where I was that day.

It wasn't a 'Kennedy' moment, or the ending of a War,

But the memory is vivid, in that way.

I was coming down the hill, the sun had set, the moon was high,

And the church bells were all ringing in my ears,

And I suddenly felt HISTORY; I was living on a stage;

This was my time, this was my year of years.

For all of us were Royalists, we worshipped our youthful Queen,

And this child was her first-born, a new Prince.

And I felt a surging joy, as though everything were right,

And I haven't felt like that a great deal since!

I whispered as I walked along 'A Prince! We have a Prince!'

It was fairy-story stuff, I see that now.

It all seemed so romantic; he'd be noble, strong and tall,

And before him every humble knee would bow!

Of course, his Daddy helped a bit! The Lover of my dreams,

That gorgeous Philip, married to our Queen,

I was really quite enamoured of that handsome, regal beast.

(And, don't forget that I was seventeen!)

So, now Prince Charles is sixty, and has lost much of his bloom,

And I'm a great deal older, sad to say,

I can still relive that moment of pure joy when he was born.

'Happy Birthday!'

That is all there is to say.