1208 - Idle Thoughts II

Dead to the World

The ambulance came.
People.  Noise.  Anxiety.
Someone slept through it.

◊

Year's End.

The year has ended—
The arbitrary passing of time,
Marked by a rocket.
     .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1207 - Not Fahrenheit

Not Fahrenheit.

Forty four degrees—
The promised temperature.
I hope that is all.
     .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1206 Idle thoughts I

A Dog's View

Live life like a dog —
Everything is worth a sniff,
Often a couple.

◊

Gratitude
Practice gratitude;
Even for things unpleasant—
They could have been worse.
     .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1205 - Alone

Alone

The noise of the sea is a constant,

The wind just comes and goes;

The spray comes off the wave tops,

The sand runs through the toes.

Alone,

A chance to think

And hone,

To stop the headlong

Forward pace;

To recognise

That life is not a sprint,

And really not a race.

    .

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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery

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1204 - The One-Walled Cage

The One-Walled Cage

Ceaselessly, you prowl side to side,
Restrained in your comfy coup;
Lamenting the woes of yesteryear
While reveling in them, too.

Inside
Is joined to outside.

It's clear this truth, as such, appalls.
But there will come a time when you must decide
To step around the walls.
    .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1203 - Crews Control

Crews Control

At a distance it is a lovely blue,
A vessel displaying a certain grace
It glides serenely through time and space,
Indifferent to the actions of the crew.

Like children fighting for the best position
Of cabin, top bunk or at the Captain's table;
Greedy, ignorant and quite unstable,

They are suicidal acts of self-coition.

Arrogantly, the crew have not yet assessed
The ship's unconcern with their petty fights,
As it powers onwards through the nights —
Will it become the next Mary Celeste?

A hundred tableaus in a hundred rooms
Meanwhile, not far up ahead, disaster looms.
    .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1202 - It's for Happy Birthday, Right?

It's for Happy Birthday, Right?

It's your birthday.
In honour - a special gift,
Monogrammed: HB.
    .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1201 - Fragmented

Fragmented

There is much to do
But I cannot do it all.
For time is so short.
    .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1200 - Stressful

 Stressful 

A colleague told me she felt 'stressful'.

I had to agree.

A lady who presented with a dress-full

Declared that she was feeling quite 'stressful'.

I think she meant 'stressed'

But, by the way she was dressed,

The first was most certainly successful.

   .

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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery

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1199 - Past Lessens

Past Lessens
An anniversary.

What better than a rondeau?

But don’t forget that life goes on,
Events should end once they have gone,
Yet the human mind is a queer machine,
Sometimes kind but often mean,
It drags things back from the beyond
To make you relive and dwell upon
The unpleasant things you’ve undergone.
It’s time to wipe the blackboard clean,
But don’t forget.

And this is the strange phenomenon,
To learn our lessons, pro and con,
But not fall into that dark ravine,
To learn the lessons but shun the spleen.
To not forgive would be quite wrong.
But don’t forget.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1198 - Lilliput II

Lilliput II

Why am I amongst aliens?
Who are these people?
Why are their values so foreign?
They lead me to weep 'til the dawn
(Sleep, tragically forelorn)
Wherein I lament the lost dreams
As a new dark ages begins,
Fear trumps vision, it seems.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1197 - Sunny Morning

Sunny Morning

Breaking old habits.

Have you ever woken and found
That what had hung over you,
That what had clung onto you,
Had disappeared in the night?
You’ll like it if you do.

It’s not so much delight,
It’s more a sort of relief,
An absence of the angst and grief
That darkened life around—
Missed, 

The way you don’t miss a thief.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1196 - I Call Bullshit

I call Bullshit

It seems that’s bull, as in bully.

The phrase is meant to point out lies
That others feed to us,
Things they’d prefer we didn’t spot,
Rather than to discuss
The facts, where it seems they're not exact.

It’s not a weaponised way to hit
Every comment, all replies—
So, now, I am calling bullshit.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1195 - The Last Frontier

The Last Frontier

The facts

Will never change

A mind,

Those numbers,

Graphs and words—

They just bounce right off

The boney wall,

Ignored, or worse,

Misheard.

So how

Can we

Be allowed

To call,

To convey

Our deepest fear

For the future of our kind,

To get past

The guarded ear?

   .

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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery

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1194 - Probably Not

Probably not.

Haiku Horizons: Sorry.

Words cut to the bone—
Even more than actions do.
Would a 'sorry' help?

Just another word;
So weak in every sense.
It cannot repair.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1193 - Predator

Predator
On receiving medical news.

Imagine a river,
Wide, inviting, shimmering
Calm on a quiet, balmy morning.

Every day, relaxed,
You strip off your cares,
Your dusty, soiled garments
of yesterday
and slip gratefully
Into the fresh waters
Of a new day.

Imagine this,
This daily ritual.
Refresh and renew.
The river of life.

One day, a local asks
"Did you know
There is a crocodile
In the river?"

Nothing has changed.
But everything has.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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