Geeks slice pi to 5 trillion decimal places

~

We’ve been around since the beginning

Counting in our heads

Seeing patterns plus foundations

Otherwise ignored or misread

~

For many the tasks are cumbersome;

Unnecessarily complex

For us, though, the specialty lies

In subtracting what comes next

~

But honestly the role isn’t without its cons

And even for us the numbers have their weight

Divided away from even the appearance of normality

We function to prove wrong those who negate

~

If it is indeed so good then shouldn’t we be more inclined to it

Rather than sensing the certainty of internal doubt?

~

If it was so good then why hasn’t everyone subscribed to it

Why then are there people still hounded and unsure?

~

Those who have turned away without a shred of regret

Sure of themselves beyond the measure of the majority

~

Those who can stare tempting popularity in the face

And honestly say they’re not impressed

~

A trigger takes me back

to a precious moment I’ve kept dear

The mere thought of which elicits a tearful sadness

alongside a warm sense of comfort and safety

~

Revisiting a golden time and place from long ago

with a fresh wonder and joy for a world so new

That innocence and purity of my exposure to life has since been lost and replaced

by knowledge and language too descriptive, and needlessly complicated

~

I feel the pangs of mourning for a homesickness of my youth

accepting that it is impossible to appreciate the richness of existence again through such a cherished, simple perspective

-

What is that very first moment when you know you’re alive?

Is it the vision of your mother, seen through your

fresh and never before used eyes?

Perhaps your existence begins when your mind comprehends the soothing sounds of kind voices heralding your arrival into the world?

What is your very first memory?

And how early into infancy can you travel when a single object or mood

triggers a special childhood sensation, locked away from long ago but still

influential and ever-present in your life – governing who you are to

this very day?

It hits me only now that this image I’ve had of my mother, all this time

Has long been affectionately biased by the rosy tint of these youthful eyes

~

I am now at an age, corresponding closely to that time when she had me

Faced with a similar prospect of our lives changing ever irreversibly

~

I’ve known her only as my mum, an enriching role model for an only son

It makes me wonder how she was as a young woman and how we would have gotten on

~

Adulthood is thrust upon us so soon, often catching us unawares:

Not fully ready to undergo that morph into a generation of greying hair

~

The funny thing is that it was me who made her “mother” – a role she grew into perfectly

Almost as if we’ve educated each other in this life cycle of humanity

~

And through her constant love with all her wisdom gained and shared up until here

This next stage of existence an awakened latency, and one I needn’t fear

~

It petrifies me to think that we’ll end up like that, someday

Where all the things that needed to be said, have all been said away

With only our presence together to confirm for us our youth

All withered away, a love too long now in the tooth

~

I’ve seen them many times, scattered around this world as witnessed through these eyes

Couples who have since merged their freedoms into the one single, common life

It’s often made me wonder whether this step is an inevitable conclusion

To the days of long ago of an inescapable flirtatious delusion

~

I know though through my entire essence that that is not how we will be

Nor will the laughter and joy we sound out turn into a silent meaninglessness easily

And so all those couples’ faces –  blank but with an alleged love for which I have disputed

Will remind me to announce loudly and constantly that “My love for you will never be muted”

~

~

Copyrighted Image, Pam O’Connell: The Silent Couple

~

Complete with old ways, thoughts and habits

Taking over my consciousness and current existence of being

Causing me to resort, too easily, to a familiar self-destruction

~

This demon sees straight through my soul

Picking out casually like grapes my deepest and darkest fears

Exposing my weaknesses to me, displaying them with pride

Showing me the quickest and easiest solutions to all that I deny

~

I no longer see myself through my own eyes

But rather through those old ones back from some youthful place

The choices I have are those available to that lost and frightened child

An offered hand of love concealing an irreparably damaging knife

~

But I stare back at him today, reigning myself back in

I am not helpless nor prone, and he cannot frighten me

For I have changed since those days when he came to visit me those times

For I am older now, and have learnt of my own braveness to fight

~

Who I was then will not now dictate who I am now

Even if this old version of me insists he will still hang around:

He will serve usefully as a reminder of all I have lost

As well as all the wonderful things that I have since then found

Business Booming For Rent-a-Friend Agencies

~

I am a best man, an old friend, even a husband

For those who need that special someone

I never judge their motives nor their reasons

I am happy to put on that predefined face

~

For friendship isn’t just a case of reciprocity

Neither is it a process of bartering

It’s a sense of security that you feel when it’s there

A loss all too revealing of oneself when not

~

Family then is a different thing altogether

A knowledge of a comfortable home and a formal awkwardness

Where things that need to be said often never are

A festering buildup of internal disciplined frustrations

~

It’s often too uncomfortable, isn’t it?

To have society and friends and family on your back

That’s why I offer you my shell

To shield you from the strain

~

So call me Bob or Jack or William

I’ll be whoever it is you need

My going rate is fairly reasonable, I think

Allowing you to focus on only who you want to be

What if it was just that one little thread

Which meant the difference between him going to her instead of me

What if it actually never happened

Existing only as another ‘what might have been’

~

What if I were to weave this thread in my tale

Diverting it into a vacant and adjacent stitch of fate

For me that’d be a far more refined resolution

Than the tears that run down when all is too late

~

Copyrighted image belongs to Sharon Smith (portfolio)

Shepherded through a massive crowd

Time is short as I weave in and out

I think of nothing but the desperate rush I am in

Until a bewitching face flashes past

Headed in the opposite direction

Her eyes shine out from beneath her veil

Glowing as she pushes something: a pram or a stretcher

She is so familiar to me but I am unrecognised

There is no eye contact

Nor the slightest acknowledgment 

As if we weren’t supposed to meet yet in this alternate life

My aides grow impatient

Many shoulders bump into mine

My wild and hurried steps now tamed

And just like that she is gone

Lost in the flock and hidden from my sight

The job at hand turns insignificant as she, now, is my urgency

For me, life is sitting on my balcony, overstocked with chairs

Savouring the taste of my last cigarette late on a Sunday night

Looking out onto an empty school yard, the whistling wind brushing up against the leaves of a hundred year old tree

Where the cicadas sing under flickering stars suspended in a deep and dark blue sky

I am 26 years old, a brain ticking away within the body of a young man

Thinking of my dear beloved on her long journey home

And there isn’t much more to be told, in all honesty

As the story of my life on this one day at 26 years is rather simple

Yet I hope to remember it, and value this moment of self reflection

For the way we interpret time, as it always has been, is temporary and relative

And time right now consists of the sight of a parking lot at night, through these eyes of mine

A moment of silent internal resolution I hope to treasure and appreciate, together with its accompanying feelings

A simple type of contentment which I hope to cling onto, to use as a benchmark:

Understated joy which won’t disappear anytime soon from the heart of one in the midst of his prime