I am organised by nature
Everything has a place
I cannot thrive in untidiness
Chaos I will not embrace!
I find culling therapeutic
It clears both home and mind
To function well in life
Disorder I must decline!
The time glass
The morning takes a longer time awakening
the sun is hesitant hides in the east before showing its might.
The wind is blowing low at the entrance
it tires me out breathing becomes laborious.
I made dinner myself my wife has gone to the hospital to see
if her brother is well enough to live with us, if not we have
to send him to a place for those chronically ill.
I remember when my mother was no longer able to cope
we sent her to a home, she hated it, and in despair stopped eating.
We thought we were doing good, but we only did what was expedient for us.
I regret this she could live longer at her own home with
with a helper coming in once a day, my mother was not that
helpless she could make her coffee in the morning
and boil an egg, it was her untidiness people reacted against
books and magazines were cluttering up the home.
She liked her self rolled cigarettes and brandy which offended
the righteous.
My sin was I should have spoken up but sided with the many
who thought what was best for her.
In walking mist between the sunshowers
A careless passerby stumbles
He stares awkwardly for a moment
And then carries himself onwards,
I could have known him but for his haste
And was sure something familiar struck me about him,
Perhaps the unshaved face
The careless erratic approach
The whole untidiness of his appearance,
Something kept probing my thoughts
Asking questions of him,
Perhaps an old friend from the past
Someone with whom I had shared many troubles,
Perhaps no one that I knew at all
But who resembled someone that I did,
All these thoughts entered my head
And disappeared without any satisfaction.
W.A CHOLT. Copyright Fergal O Reilly. 1993.
There’s such a change in today’s society
so different from what it was long ago
attitudes and morals so very lacking
untidiness in dress all so casual on show
When you walk down most streets today
candy papers, cigarette ends all is a mess
chewing gum stuck hard on walkway
what have we come to? Totally careless
There’s a word that’s not spoken nowadays
that describes all of this it is a shame
we seem to have lost this in our society
it’s not part of our vocabulary game
Our hearts need real searching
so shame would we truly know
how far our character has fallen
rise it up again and strike a blow
We need to learn respect afresh
showing it to all that are around
making a mark for everyone’s best
so respect again may be found
Brown has side-steps the onslaught of green
embarrassed at its untidiness
crumbling like the ego of an unwanted lover.
Shy beige and brazen auburn woodlands
accept the heated, golden light of noon.
Buds of saffron forsythia hug the roadside.
Pearl gray p*ssywillows caress the infant cheek of dusk.
Soon there will be no brown to gray forest.
Soon the elegant limbs of maple and beech
will be garbed in jade and draped in emerald.
I would not dishonor their barren branches with mourning
but the bells of andromeda have woken another spring.
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