What is her mission here on Earth?

This was recently on the front page of Poetry Circle which is a great poetry magazine/forum site with lots of active members and a lot of energy.  A good place to check out...

What it is this about?  Well there's loneliness and isolation, wistful longing for another person...  but I think mostly this is about the awkwardness of adolescence and growing up.  Boy wants girl.  Boy doesn't understand girls.  Boy speculates wildly...

...obviously it works the same for any other combination of genders, and the gender of the protagonist is in fact wholly in the gift of the reader... is in fact a sort of 'everyperson'; a symbol for any or everyone.

One day, maybe, she'll speak to us and everything will change.

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What is her mission here on Earth...


...and do I even waste what chance I have
lounging beside my locker, checking-out
the girl from Mars?  Nobody ever saw
her father's car: so maybe she gets dropped
at five a.m. by shuttle-pod somewhere far

beyond the football ground.  She has no clique,
not even in the default group for freaks
and friendless geeks--I know; I've run with them
myself.  How can you stand outside outsiders?
Unless intelligence, so alien

broods silent in one eye?   It sees but does
not do; it won't join in; her hands so thin:
she writes machine-like, awkward and a touch
frustrated, as if  paper with only two
dimensions is so quaint.  She ain't stupid

in maths, she writes the answer first, before
the working out.  And think of Martian sex!
Does she have tentacles...?  Scratch that.  Relax...
Focus on facts.  She's drifted through these halls
for three years now, with always half a smile,

an emissary from mission control;
or maybe robot telepresence rig,
that sort of thing: space-probe or bomb-disposal
mechanism driven by a soul, distant,
the far end of a string that's pulled so tight

out of an empty tin.  I'll ask again:
What is our mission here on Earth?

NaPoWriNo - 2017 - April 19th - The mythical creation myth

The prompt was to retell a creation myth.

First time I've used "wang" or "tits" in a poem, but then your typical creation myth is going to get a bit earthy...



The mythical creation myth

They say they say the universe begins
in fire, of all things; massive growth in white hot
techno-commercial foment or else some moment
of some old godhead cutting off some other
old god’s bits. The sky-father’s wang. The earth-mother’s
tits. The separation of the light and dark, water
and land, the casual combining of whatever
elements might come to hand into first life.

First life, first light, first thought… first criticism
the creation-creator held up for inspection
and to account. Is this the only way
the World can be? Is there enough infinity
or family values? Is the climate wrong
in late September? Has the climate model
come undone, dropping her pointer and spilling one boob
in front of the green-screen projection

of the home counties. What country is our home
in the world we less than intentionally create.
Do not pause at the gate but hit the commuter train
on time. Newspaper tucked firmly beneath
your Sure for men armpit and daily in it
the word-smiths push their sempiternal spin
there is such detail still needs construction
for the creation story that never ends.

NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 6th - You need to have a plan

You need to have a plan


You need to have a plan and its first part
must say the cutting edge of the state of the art
can't hold a candle to you.  Investors love
that short of thing.  Secondly, say you'll move
the goalposts, redefine the market, break
the paradigm, already have the stake-
holders saluting ducks all in a row
and never show your working.  Although, you know

that faking rumours of a prototype
can rocket-boost the most slothful share price
and drive your competition into fits—
so that is when you sell off all the bits
then make some sort of statement in the press:
how federal regulation caused the mess.

Going forward

I had an evening out with some people I used to work with...

...who are all still mostly more embroiled with large corporations than I am...

...so I promised one of them I would post this.

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Going forward

The corporation cannot plan
its way out of a paper bag
which—note—is not to say
it doesn't have extensive PowerPoints
to socialise the vision
for the new, division-wide, bag-exit mission
get buy-in from the stakeholders at levels
from CFO to tea lady
and distribute cheap beer and pizza
at revels
that celebrate the dragging of one thousand hapless
employees, kicking and screaming,
into progress, status, overview, coordination,
planning, steering, post-mortem, and kick-off, meetings
at cost of fifty thousand person-hours
or half a million dollars [OpEx]
which is money so well spent
for staying in a paper bag.  Meanwhile

Team Lunchpack—who were spun,
you will recall, from Project Dune and tasked
with building an organisation-wide
flexible container collocation strategy—
have been thinking outside the box,
and now are standing
a touch despondently
outside a cardboard shipping carton,
and wondering where everybody went.

The greatest what on Earth?

The elephant declined to comment...

Who doesn't like the circus? 

(...or "socially inclusive, family oriented, non-animal, international circus event" as was advertised locally a couple of years ago...)

Well there's agoraphobics; claustrophobics; people afraid of crowds (Enochlophobia); people concerned about the treatment of animals (if animals still feature); people concerned about the treatment of performers; people yearning for the old days when things were proper, with tigers and everything; people who prefer ballet; people afraid of spangles; and people who can do all that stuff anyway and don't see what the fuss is about (show-offs.)

But dwarfing all of these factions, the number one group of people who are never going to be happy with:

*
Stanchion and Pouldron's

Grand Touring Extravaganza!

—
Fresh from Performing
Before the Crowned Heads
of Europe!!
—
One Night Only!!!
* 

—are the people who hate clowns...

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The greatest what on Earth?


The circus came;
the big-top billowed, unexpected,
at the edge of town.

The clowns were terrible,
not like from a children's party,
all patchy make-up
and no affinity for balloon animals,
but more like strutting devils
accidentally released
and looking for revenge.

They executed the juggler
with a callous custard pie
coloured clubs crashing down;
and the top-hatted man,
unmastered in his own ring,
was driven into exile
with whitewash and a ladder.

A totalitarian regime
of unfunny large-trouser gags
began to take shape,
and things would have gone hard for the audience
had the elephant
(who must have been God)
not sat on the chief clown.