So many words spoken,

So many words spoken,

Written

Heard or read

A million reasons

Ideas and notions

Floating around

In seven billion heads

How many of them

Will be said for the first time

Echoed in repetition

Over and over again

Is anything ever

Truly original

What is the point

When the truth is

Nothing I write

Will make one tiny

Jot of difference

To people’s lives,

Unless they try

Does anybody learn

Anything new

That was not

Already known

But forgotten

To memory

Hidden

Deep in a recess

Buried in a midden

Of mouldering paraphrases

Along with everything else

Overwritten by

Circumstance

Discovered by happenstance

Redressed

Recycled

Renewed

Reframed

Without the wit

Of Shakespeare

Milton

Or Whitman

There is every chance

In a world

That lacks coincidence

That this little piece

Of self-indulgent

Semi-literate dross

Mis-labelled verse

Could have been written

By you

Or worse

It could have

Been written by me.