Category Archives: Morality

Kitchen calamity

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Falafel salad200

 
 
Workplace perfidy inspired this. With apologies to Babes in the Wood.
 
 
 
 
 
 

My dears do you know – sad tale of woe!
How a salad of falafel and avocado
Was left in a fridge on a warm Thursday eve
To be enjoyed the next day, or so I believed.

The broccoli was verdant, the pomegranate inviting,
The hue of the beetroot was frankly quite frightening.
And on a bed of brown rice laid lovingly down
Two turmeric falafels – the jewels in the crown!

But when Friday came round, so sad was the sound
Of soft lunch-time crying and sorrow unbound.
For swift in the night and with malice unbeaten
The salad was opened. The salad was eaten.

So ends a sad tale of a kitchen amiss
And if we learn something please let it be this:
To use a work fridge and to keep from a shock,
First place food in a lunchbox, then secure with a lock!
 

Late-night Shopping

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Multi-coloured clothes pegs

 
He shivered at my door
And in his hand he held
Multi-coloured clothes pegs which belied
The black around his tired eyes and
The whiteness of the knuckles that gripped them in desperation.

It was his final sales round he said –
As if we might imagine that door-to-door sales of clothes pegs
Hadn’t ended in 1979 with the garish caravans and bridled ponies that brought them.

He was sorry to knock so late.
He knew folk didn’t care to be disturbed after nine,
But it was our last chance for he was off to sell his wares in Orpington tomorrow.
Or was it Neasden?
He couldn’t remember but was concerned we might miss out
On an offer we couldn’t refuse.

He had lap-top screen cleaners too and,
Naturally, zip-lock bags. Everything you might need
At ten o’clock on a Monday evening.

My heart was full that night and
I had already been counting my blessings and taking the liberty
Of counting those of my friends and my loved-ones and
I had held Graham particularly close when we kissed goodbye that morning.

I said that the marker-pens in his bag looked especially lovely
And a large grin split his thin face as his pigeon-chest puffed out
With pride at the goods he had undoubtedly chanced upon
Hours earlier.

They were his favourite and he could certainly do us a deal
If I wanted the lot – although it would be hard to part with such items
At such a price. I had a kind face and it was late and his family was waiting.
For the move to London, I presumed.

I gave him a note, too big for the price, and as I passed it to him
Our fingers touched briefly and in that moment I knew
That he knew and he knew that I knew.
And I hope he knew that I wished him luck.
 

That night’s gonna last forever

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mirror-shard

 
You must be so weary of living.
A life in self-service does not make you whole.
When the price of appearing important
Is your soul.

And that life’s gonna drive you crazy and
That life’s gonna get you sold
Down a river whose rapids are stagnant
Pools of mould.

Think twice before you act unkindly.
Reflect that if you turn into fun
The feelings of another person
Have you won?

And that night’s gonna last forever and
That night’s gonna feel so cold.
‘Cause it’s dark inside when you’re lonely,
Feeling old.

Better check your dreams for the future
Will outlive the misdeeds of your past.
For the now is but a fleeting moment
We outlast.

And that dream’s gonna take you over and
That dream’s gonna define you.
Will you shine like a star forever
When it’s through?

So take this jagged piece of mirror.
Hold it up to the tip of your nose.
Do you like what you see or must you flee
What it shows?

And that face is gonna know you a long time and
That face is gonna show what you’ve done.
Start now to rebuild for tomorrow
Has begun.

The last dance

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Dancer

 
I didn’t expect that I would die,
I didn’t know I had to dignify
A bid for future, peace, and freedom
With an iron-clad, no-nonsense, water-tight reason
Why I wished to go out that night
And dance away ‘neath cool neon light.

I didn’t know I would become a martyr
Midst clouds of alcohol-scented laughter
That out of a mist of foaming CO2
A cruelly aimed gun would come thrusting through
And excise the heart of the life I had made
A hope for tomorrow gone with each bullet sprayed.

I never had much, just an old battered case
With a misspelled logo set in the wrong type-face.
But I had a picture of those I had left behind
And on the back Te queremos my mother had signed.
In the early days here when things got too tough
I would take it on out and remember the love.

But little by little I made my way,
I got my own place and I earned my own pay.
I made new friends and I learned who I was
Sent half my pay home and was happy because
My future was mine as I saw fit
And I was damn proud of myself, I must admit.

After a while I got a pay raise
5 times what dad earned in my childhood days.
I moved downtown and forgot day-to-day hustles,
Joined a gym, got a plan, and worked hard on my muscles.
Home and away politics were easily dismissed;
Second amendment rights were never high on the list.

So I lived the dream, and dreaming I danced
By freedom, hope, and my boyfriend romanced.
Then at the height of the day and on the cusp of tomorrow
The spirits of night beckoned and summoned I followed.
The choice was not mine; it was the gunman’s blast
That spun me on round as we danced our last dance.

Death versus the town of Went

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Death on horseback

When Death comes marauding and swings his scythe
In swathes of violent hues that split the skies,
The airborne pale hooves thundering
And skeletal soul plundering
Bounce off the town of Went and no one dies.

Death hauls in the reins and draws a fiery arc.
From horizon to horizon burns his bloody mark.
His smirk is now a rictus
And his scream is maledictus
As he stalks the town below like a bony shark.

The people beneath walk about and pay no heed
To the shadowy figure looming on his pale-skinned steed.
Their hearts are resolute
And the town hall spire a one-fingered salute.
To wail and gnash and rend their clothes they have no need.

Nowhere in this town can you find a gun.
No hatred of a different-coloured neighbour to turn a knife upon.
Though different creeds there are aplenty
The prison cells are empty;
No one feels the need to just look after number one.

The townsfolk have planted hedges in communal rows
That trace saw-teeth against the sky like sharpened dominoes.
Death swoops down and cuts his arse,
Shreds his shroud on ground-up glass,
Breaks his wrist and twists his neck and bloods his nose.

Without the tools of his trade Death lies unmasked.
His only hope is that sickness complete his morbid task.
But the hungry here are fed,
Their doctors’ bills to all are spread,
And no natural causes are currently forecast.

Across the land fires burn in merry bands
That scorch the earth and boil the seas and glass the sands.
Yet a patch of green remains,
Lazy blue rivers and leafy lanes,
Where the town hall of the town of Went so proudly stands.

So Long, My Love

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Free bird

So long, my love. The world can’t wait to meet you.
Love tires, enough, and they all so want to complete you.
I knew you then when all was well in our ken.
And I see now how it was time not our love that was broken.
 
 
Take care, of you. As I did when you were sleeping.
Please just slip through. My grip is weak when I’m weeping.
In a state of alarm I did harm keeping you safe in my arms.
You should have flown alone and painted the sky with your charms.

Now go, my dear. I have no right to hold you.
Be strong, don’t fear, it’s all just as I’ve told you.
You thought me kind, mind, all I said was to blind.
Now please fly free, see, I am there close behind. 

The house that Jack built

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The house that Jack built

Jack spied some land overgrown and squalid
On a road of rich houses high and solid.
‘Twas the garden of a cottage squat and horrid.
The house that Jack built.

To the elderly owner he did proffer
A few measly pounds to take the land off her.
Else someone would trip and sue, and try to rip off her.
The house that Jack built.
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Pescetarian pests

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Fish near hook

It is almost 4 weeks since Graham and I ate meat. I say “meat” deliberately because we are still eating fish and seafood, and that doesn’t count as meat. I checked in the dictionary so it must be true. I believe this makes us “pescetarians” doncha know.

I don’t much like that term. Firstly I don’t like it because it makes you sound like a middle-class tosser. I made my peace with that years ago, though. Mainly I don’t like it because it sounds like you’re a vegetarian manqué. A wannabe who doesn’t quite follow through with their convictions, and I don’t like that mainly because it’s true. This makes it head an on-going list I have of drawbacks of pescetarianism:

1) You have to defend a stance that you agree has elements of hypocrisy. “It’s ok to eat fish ’cause they don’t have any feelings,” sang Nirvana ironically. Yes Kurt, I know, I know. You’re right. Fish and sea-dwellers are still living creatures. My disingenuous answer to this would be that I don’t think that these creatures routinely suffer as much as meat-producing animals can. The real answer is, baby steps! If we get on ok with no meat then perhaps no fish will follow. As it stands, I would have gone mad without being able to eat fish and seafood over the past few weeks.
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