No Win No Fee they call it
And it’s such a cause of shame
In todays strange society where
It’s somebody else to blame.
Nobody wants to accept
Responsibility for any action,
Who can I sue these days
Being the usual reaction.
Burn yourself spilling coffee
Blame yourself not
Just sue the vendor for
Selling it to you too hot.
He should have realised
You’re probably a clumsy fool
And sold you a coffee
That’s more than a little cool.
Somewhere a Legal Advisor
Rubs his hands with glee
Raking in his slice of
Your award, No Win No Fee.
The soldier in combat
In the modern day strife
Reacts as he’s been trained
To save his comrades life.
Many years later
Over passage of time
Can find he’s been accused
Of historic War Crime.
And the past is revisited
As he fights to stay free
From an action that’s funded
Courtesy of No Win No Fee.
The hard eyed legal functionary
In his well tailored business suit
Watches the cash roll in
From his speculative fruit
And cares not a fig about
Any ex squaddie like me
As he continues to exploit
His Golden Apple No Win No Fee
Life, an infirm spark,
An unsteady flame,
A powerful blaze,
Increasing in speed and ability.
To be precise,
The incomprehensibility,
The knowledge gathered,
The continuity and discretion;
The unity, and the strict subordination,
With the reduction of friction and of material at a personal cost,
These are raised to the optimum point;
It is in the strict functionary direction of life.
Rain, Tree, Lizard – Haiku
wet functionary
scaled feet slip, tree knows better
reptilian off
Women who drink and sex
It was in Livorno and it was a cold January night when I met her
in a bar- where else does one meet women, in the salvation army?
What she was doing in Livorno beats me as she was an American
woman far from home, I was there waiting for my ship to come in.
We were both drinkers and felt empathy for one another and when
the bar closed she came to my hotel. In the morning, I had a shower,
she was still asleep woke and asked what I was doing in her room
I told her it was my hotel room she cried; worked for the consulate.
We had breakfast, but she needed a drink to feel normal. Saw her go
into a taxi looking like an efficient functionary going to work, I knew
she could not keep it up the day of estimation was near, she left
a hundred dollar bill on my pillow I was both offended and pleased,
being a low paid seaman, my silence would be absolute. If she wrote
a book about this encounter I will somehow get the blame hinting
darkly she had been abused by me. But this is not true what the lady
long for is not being able to make love with abandonment and blame
it on the booze.
WORTHLESS FUNCTIONARY
When you reach that time in your life
where you make all the choices,
be sure you are mentally active enough
to overcome a lifetime full of negative voices.
Voices and thoughts of your total worth
reverberate through your vacuous head,
they continue throughout the day and
prevent you from sleeping once in bed.
Their sordid dissing voices never, ever
sounded like they remotely tried to be dear.
Thankfully, those voices never came from the one
you were truly wishing would appear.
Once again you’re alone with your random thoughts
and you keep hearing discordant muses.
Significant time is wasted thinking about
your own life and its’ supposed limited uses.
Needed by some, so often you’re abused
and maybe you’re ignored by many others.
Does your worthless functions really mean less
than THEIR self absorbed agenda and druthers?
When you come into this world
you are fully intentioned to stay,
so who really gives a damn if within
your life, they refuse to play.