It Is Enough, Is It?

It is not enough simply to pretend

that you do not know what you are doing.

I want to write every sentence as a paradox;

a dog barking at the moon, scaring the moths

and wondering why he is no longer a wolf.

It is not enough to buy the contents of your supermarket 

(although there are actually seven of them, let's not say otherwise)

and redistribute all of the sugar,

the dried fruit, the out-of-date Mars bars,

the crisps, well, basically everything, 

to those without sugar, without dried fruit,

without out-of-date Mars bars, without crisps,

without, well, basically everything.

Here we are lying on a beach,

throwing shapes at passers-by,

all of whom are tourists.

This is something to be avoided,

but bad habits, once embarked upon,

are difficult to jettison,

like the quandary of what to do with an astronaut 

who has a midlife crisis out in space.

'I need to buy a sports car to assert my status.'

You're living in space-ship; isn't that high-status enough?

Let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Let's give everyone a free poem.

Let's never forgive the trees for being trees.

Oil does not mix with water,

and this is more profound, and also more shallow,

than it appears.

It is not enough simply to be right 

all of  the time.

Humility may be hard won,

but if you mention it to everyone, all of the time,

the whole faintly pointless charade is undone.

Negotiating time like a particle 

which believes that it is a wave.

Why should poetry make sense? Life doesn't. 

Poetry should make sense because life doesn't,

but the inherent senselessness of life

should be reflected in your lines of wandering verse.

It is not enough, nothing is; nothing can be. 

It is not enough. It is never enough. 

The consequences of any action are never known.