Grind To A Halt [Rev]

My beloved’s birthday has been hijacked by his
company; the final contract won’t be signed until
midnight - his day’s thus been ruined by a school
of sharks, pirates, evil attorneys & their minions;
gone’s the pleasure of going to the sea-side and
staying in a wooden hut under swaying, sighing
fir trees; resigned, he bought a cake, accepted

A gift of whiskey, though he sits stoically - pining
for release from uncertainty, for the final moment
it’s signed - and so then to relax, enjoy life again;
I run about, rebellious and angry that his strife is
caused by the whims of conniving colleagues - I
want to watch TV & sleep, shutting out all of his
heartbreak - how can I inspire joy & love when

I feel so disappointed myself, it’s not a certainty
all parties will sign and if not, the company will
grind to a halt with all having to pay back debts,
wiping pension & prospects; I sigh - sins of the
fathers could affect my son’s future too…

Hers To Design [Rev]

Telepathy? Of course, it works! Carine is moving to the
Cape Province, she’s in love and she’s going to get an
English Bull dog, and I put a Winston Churchill soft toy
on her bed as a welcoming gift before she told me her
news, isn’t that perfect? After a hiatus of five years, she
is moving forward planning a new life; she went to Italy
to watch the Grand Prix and she’s fulfilling her ideals of
more work responsibility - her dreams are crystallising

Into a reality of franchising as she’ll take the helm of a
new food-outlet-entrepreneurial ship that’s launched -
and I feel humbly delighted that prayers for her have
been heard since a kind, intelligent, omniscient super-
consciousness reflects the vibration of well-being that
has been projected; she shows a new independence
and fulfilment while she is visiting with a new love and
a new light in her eyes, the dark shadows are lifting as

The past recedes to reveal the bright new beginning
that is hers to design and bring to life…

Arch Little Miss [Rev]

Waiting to hear how my darling little tomboy of a
girl’s doing - waiting to hear those words that will
prove she’s happy and in the right place - - when
her WhatsApp Message came; I had the chance
to ask the most important question – ‘Have you
already made some new friends, dear?’ -

‘Yes, she replied, my new acquaintances complain
I know too many people so that they can’t keep up
with all the names - it’s just like home - I hang out
with so many friends, I only miss stroking my cat’,
this mother’s world is complete, my little lass is a
hit - not sweet, I regret not having dressed her in

Dainty concoctions as a kid, now I see those pink
confections she should have worn as a youngster,
but what happened conspired to produce the arch
little Miss that she is, mischievous and perfect for
her mom, I’m so pleased, in spite of my misgivings
she’s a delight - a tease - yet kind and discrete

Everyone she meets is a possible friend & every
event can be fun; I only marvel at the intense joy
& relief I feel knowing my little darling’s enjoying
the adventures I saw in my mind’s eye as soon
as she got the job overseas on a cruise ship…

All Fall Asleep [R]

What a break-through, a feeling of insight,
NOW it makes sense why we have to redo
performance agreement, work-plan needs:
bureaucracy assumes only incumbents with
short-term memory loss are employed, and
although we remember where we work, we
forget what we’re supposed to do, lost in an
existential emptiness, no raison d’existence

Every year we fall asleep with Briar Rose in
Sleeping Beauty & after spending a period
of 100 years in other dimensions, we wake
up to find only 1 year has passed - yet the
mind’s wiped clean, a ghost in the machine,
the Auditors make us redo our duty sheets
and reread job descriptions --to pick up the
pieces unaware of the time period lost--oh,
what a beautiful fairy tale this is – us being

Attendants at the black matter, dark energy
party, we just carry on unaware of the 99%
invisible universe; let us rejoice in quantum
physics and bureaucracy-- keeping us from
feeling adrift in a sea of nothingness… We
had better prepare for retirement to be kept
in line with self-devised job descriptions we
drafted ourselves - I shall start on mine
immediately….

Dimensional Relay-Station [R]

A storm-ridden office, Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
& an allergic head - thoughts darting like small fish
through my shrinking skull at lightning speed - and
before I can focus on anything, it’s gone; tentacles
of an invisible octopus crunching me – like a piece
of flotsam standing at my desk in a lonesome vigil
as sentinel of the section delivering cold relays &
corrections of other nations’ words with rule books
to guide the lonely official through the mine fields
of menacing errors & evil mistakes, ensnaring all
apprentice-visionary incumbents, like me, who

Dream of protagonists in joyous sleep - so please
becalm the whirling tornado in my head & stop the
hurricane swallowing my heart to alienate me from
myself & take everything dear with it… please stop
me from eating caramel delights & accept boredom
of strict diets to shrink my overarching stomach and
make room for me in the body… I’m like a marsupial
with an expanding pouch which seems like nightmare
scenes of a sad, shuffling existence thus I had better
prepare to die peacefully in my sleep:

My pouch will probably engulf the whole me - that
will bring sweet strangulation, thank goodness - a
happy departure to a dimensional relay-station far,
far away from Planet Earth…

Toffee Pudding [Rev]

Peace, peace, peace - happiness means an
alignment everybody; sing, sing, sing for the
harmony brings fulfilment and serenity within
sonorous tones of the octaves’ frequencies-
& the only important thing is the flow of notes
reverberating through the earth and echoing
from the heavens - solve the riddle of life by
becoming a happy relativist as everything

folds into the mould provided by the belief we
invest therein, joy, joy, joy – looking for things
to awaken interest, I found the beautiful taste
of comforting food - appreciating home-made
scones & toffee pudding with caramel sauce;
now my life is wonderful - filled with fabulous
things I adore, the problem is how I’m to stop
eating, stop always asking for more – if I

don’t stop, I’ll become just another 600lb
body ready for bypass surgery & I refuse;
anything’s better than a bloody salvation
from being a self-inflicted human garbage
disposal system…

For Reasons Oblique [R]

Conscientious colleagues watching me in concerted
effort to share the load of my being; saving the time
that my overworked, Chinese-studying supervisor &
the dashing Madame La Pompadour have to devote
to prevent me straying from the fold into the -

Pastoral panoramas of classical music and the lyrical
landscapes of poetry calling to me since I’m so much
a symbolist as in “Pelléas & Mélisande” - by Maurice
Maeterlinck; given my forbidden, doomed love for the
freedom of individual expression and creativity - thus

Earning high marks for kindness and flexibility & only
enough for scaling mountains of nonsensical texts &
E-filing procedures of these – though it should count
that I analyse the Astrogenetic sign of the employees
of His Majesty, the Zulu King and his 5,6 or 7 Queens

Having already corrected my new Job Description as
prescribed by the new Work Plan which includes the
translation from Spanish & Portuguese – and helping
an unwilling Afrikaans Section to churn out letters for
the Office of the President --- which are changed to

Suit the mood of officials tasked with assembly-line
translations: terms, syntax & grammatical rules so
the text never sings: alliteration, assonance, rhyme
& rhythm all forbidden as in modern Afrikaans Bible
versions, all for reasons oblique – it’s beyond me

To keep track of the pedagogical prescriptions of
our select group of modern language practitioners
where this Mélisande has to be watched carefully