Regularity is Required

How in life to order bring?

Clarity of thought to gain?

Still meditation is the thing,

To wash my mind clear of its pain.

Steady practice is what's needed,

Siren calls must not be heeded.

Twice a day to quiet the mind,

Is the way to freedom find.

It's so hard to tame the spirit,

Restless roaming of my focus,

What I need to keep me at it,

Keep in mind contentment's locus.

On a related theme: 

http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-holy-spirit.html

http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-weight-of-world.html

Season of Goodwill

A cautionary tale concerning the dangers of overdoing the seasonal tippling. The narrative voice is from the female point of view. Any resemblance to a popular song is purely coincidental.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart,

You tried to impress, by lighting a fart.

Then you threw up in the sink

And put it all down to high jinks.

Then when, you swore at my mum

You'd the nerve to maintain, it was in fun.

When she said you were rash,

You just jeered at her moustache.

When you tripped over the cat,

You just blamed him, for being fat.

I said, you were an arse,

The whole thing was just a farce.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart,

You tried to impress, by lighting a fart.

This year, I may turn queer,

Unless I find someone better.

See also: 

http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/christmas-shopping.html

Christmas Shopping

And so this is Christmas, the traffic is jammed.

Last minute shopping, the roads are just crammed.

Ambulances flash past in a blue glare,

As desperate shoppers succumb to despair.

Time is against them, they step on the gas;

In such a hurry, they may have a crash.

The fumes are increasing, as is the road rage.

Frustration is building, it feels like we're caged.

The season of goodwill just isn't much fun,

And the curse of it is, it's only begun.

Based on my experience of trying to get home tonight (Dec 19th), which involves driving across the City Centre. God knows what tomorrow will be like. 

P.S. it was worse.

We're All in It Together

Just as the PM has said.
What he failed to explain is that we aren't all in it to the same depth.

The rich are in it up to their toenails.
The middle class and businessmen are in it up to their ankles.
The workers are in it up to their waists.
The unemployed are in it up to their necks.
The sick are in it up to their eyeballs.

Schooling in Connecticut

In Yankee land the law's a joke,

It's all too easy to get a gun,

The gunman gets high on some coke,

And then he has himself some fun.

Pursuing some peculiar grudge,

He lets rip and the bullets fly;

Unless his aim is quite misjudged

They strike their mark and children die.

Michigan has a law just passed

To let you take guns into schools.

Its people must be very crass

To vote for such a pack of fools.

An Uphill Drive to Copt Oak

As I ascend the mist grows thick,

Against the screen its tendrils lick.

I flick on headlights, but still can't see.

It feels like freezing cloud to me,
Which of deep murk seems guarantee.

The frost clings white to all the trees,

An eerie landscape of unease.
As I maintain my fogbound climb,
All things grow more encased in rime.

Ice binds to holly, hedge and lime.

Change comes when gloom was at its worst:
I'm in a sea of light immersed!

Then through to brilliant sun I burst,

So swift it feels quite strange at first.

Before startled eyes the view expands;

The icy scene glows palely grand,

A glistening winter wonderland!

My journey to work, from Leicester to Whitwick, has shown me a beauty I didn't know this county possessed. It is caused by the unusually steep hills, not found in the rest of Leics. Today was quite exceptional.
Leicester was cold and gray, and very tiny snow particles were falling as I set out. As I climbed up toward Copt Oak, one of the highest points in the county, the fog grew steadily thicker, and nearly the whole landscape was white with heavy frost.
Suddenly I burst through the top of the clouds into brilliant sunshine, a hilltop vista of brilliant white trees, fields and hedges. Awesome!

Same journey in Autumn:
http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/unearthly-glow.html 

Ingerland

An ancient land once drenched in blood,

Now has turned itself to mud.

Its murd'rous people once so proud,

Now are merely drunk and loud.

No more do they of glory dream,

Now it's home to the silent scream.

Its muddled people lost their way,

Now they for past mistakes must pay.

Their forebears conquered foreign soil,

Not knowing this would England spoil.

The middle class despise blood kin,

Not seeing they're next for the bin.

Bullshit baffles brains in Britain,

Now this country's quite a shit 'un.

I look round with open eye;

Is this freedom's land I spy?

Is it progress that's been made,

Or is it just a land betrayed?

All those who dream of better times

Are deemed guilty of thought crimes.

A sly and secret power that grows,

A circle whose cup overflows,

Has ground the natives down so low.

"Bullshit baffles brains in Britain" was a popular expression when I first arrived in England 30 years ago. Also popular was: "The bosses treat us like mushrooms; they keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit." These expressions are no longer fashionable, but it is not because things have changed for the better.
This poem came to me while I was lying in bed one morning. I jumped out and scribbled it down. I spent a half hour rearranging the sequence of the lines, to try to inject coherence, and that was it.  Don't ask me what it means. Ambiguity is perhaps inherent in the subject matter. Are the questions in the second verse ironic and rhetorical? I'm not entirely sure.