Perfectly Useless

Everything, ultimately, ends up in
The Wastepaper Basket of History.
 
The vanishing of paperweights
from newly air-conditioned offices, for example.
 
No antediluvian fans in the vicinity
and obsolescence beckoned
for the heavy little bastards.
 
But you can’t put them in
The Wastepaper Basket of etc., anymore,
because history is now paperless –
 
although nobody knows,
as memos are no longer a thing.
 
Just like paperweights
and wastepaper baskets.
 
See that basket?
It’s a wastepaperless basket now.
 
Check it out to see if it’s full
of paperweights instead.
 
Check to see if it’s now a
paperweightwaste basket.
 
Or just another contrived attempt to coin
the perfectly useless neologism.
 
 
 
 

Smoked

I wish I was a curl of smoke,

Ascending to the autumn sky.

I wouldn’t have to speak to folk,

If I was but a curl of smoke,

(The product of a shifty toke,

Substantial as a weary sigh).

One day I’ll be a curl of smoke,

Ascending to a star-filled sky.

What Moves?

The surface of the lake is not so still.

A sailboat and its pilot catch the wind.

They glide across the surface with no effort.

 

The question of what moves the boat arises.

The wind says, ‘It is I who does this work.’

The sail replies, ‘Without me, you are worthless.’

 

In truth, it is the mind which moves the boat,

an answer which should need no explanation.

If sit here feeling Zen, but somewhat smug.

 

‘But what is it that moves the mind?’ says Myles.

The poem takes an unexpected turn.

If you have sons, be grateful when they’re wise.