Category Archives: Regret

The Supermarket Mouse

I must stay positive, I really must

Scampering across this film of dust

Whiskers tremble on twitching nose

Alert, examining empty shadows

Mice, who once were spoiled for choice

Now mourn their loss in squeaky voice

Tiny claws make tinny sounds

On bare metal shelving battlegrounds

A dozen different types of bread

Empty spaces here instead

Beans and pasta, once stacked proud

Now all gone, with the crowd

Long life milk disappeared

Hoarded selfishly, and not shared

Toilet rolls that made a good nest

Vanished suddenly with the rest

Long gone ancestors and early forebears

Told of shortages in the war years

Awry the plans of mice and men

Failed to stop it once again

COVID-19

This orient-born global threat

A cloud passing before the sun

Its silent shadow crossing our lands

Killing without a gun

 

The world awaits the final account

Holding its collective breath

Invisible, insidious, stealthy, amoral

This viral agent of death

 

There is no border it respects

No peoples beyond its reach

‘Self-isolate’ is the official advice

Don’t panic-buy they pathetically beseech

 

Come the time when those left re-emerge

Grateful to be disease free

Only to know it will happen again

A Malthusian catastrophe

The Window of Lucidity

Tossing, turning in a sweat soaked bed

Tugging moist sheets from legs of lead

Cracking an eye to the light of dawn

Another day’s prospect, this new morn

 

Pulling on socks, trousers, shoes

Tee shirt with logo “What’s to lose”

Brushing teeth that taste of booze

How did I get another new bruise?

 

What did I eat, it’s hard to remember?

My stomach churning like a blender

Shakily pouring a glass of juice

All this down to alcohol abuse?

 

Perhaps I should cut back a bit

But can I show the needed grit?

Jut now I have the power to decide

But think tonight, I’ll go with the tide

Conscience

Who can, with lens of sincere mind

Deny wrongdoing in their lives?

Were that all could ever be kind

No erring in our archives

 

Some set out with clear intent

To bring about the mischief

Most do not have that wicked bent

But still bring others grief

 

For those who wear that latter hat

Then learn what others see

Time gnaws at conscience as a rat

Dining on misery

Choices

Which sea denies the pull of the moon?

What puppet dances to its own tune?

A barbed and chastening valentine

No choice at all; the fault’s all mine

Could do better, the report card says

But how to change one’s errant ways?

Alas, some choices can’t be mended

Outcome’s not as was intended.

Each act’s curtain draws to a close

Why it matters, none other knows