I walk the same path every day

I walk the same path every day

Sometimes it rains

Big fat heavy drops soaking through

A fairweather hoodie

Fashion trainers are no match for a heavy downpour

Sodden feet are not a comfort

But I persist until I find a good spot

To rest

Weigh my options, take a short snort from a flask

Strong coffee, fortified with rum,

Well there were ships

In the harbour, hello sailor,

I thank my lucky stars it is not cold

The wind, not a Nor’easter

Blowing ice particles into my face

Piercing the skin

With no accounting for good manners.

When it is hot and I sit on a seawall

Overlooking the bay,

Flotsam bobbing about against the brickwork

The smell of decaying vegetation

Piled up against the wooden groyne,

There is always an odd shoe,

A baby’s dummy a rubber johnny

Somebody may have come upon, lately,

Before the tide came in,

Watching the remains of a day

Before the rain washes away the morning,

I wait for a little inspiration

With Eliot who never lets me down

Even a grand escape can be overpowered

By a wasteland in the rain.

Houseman is always in too much of a hurry to feel

The earth between his fingers

To tarry a while, on an old capstan

It is never the time to consider Shakespeare

Who always has somewhere else to be

He has an innate sense of time and place

Riding off on a horse

In search of a kingdom

When the rest of us are on shank’s pony.

Minding my own business

Has always been a short stop

As the truth of my life seems to involve

Bumping into half-truths as well as delusions

Of happiness in moments of contentment,

I can’t knock it

As it is the stuff of life

And the possibility of meeting Milton

Keeps me searching for paradise.