Changes and constants

The flowerpots brimming just the same,
the late light in the long evenings,
the urban landscapes, river Thames;
but change still touches many things.
Fish and chips in newspaper cones -
the cod’s still there, but the paper’s gone.

Less rain, more sun, and fans in rooms
that knew only heating systems.
Fed up commuters fret and fume
in the trains, getting out of them.
The subways swelter, few buskers play
at the station on a sizzling day.


The river’s eternal, riversides
get modified by men, and piers,
millennium eyes, cable rides,
smart cards to swipe at smart barriers.
Three glasses forty years before;
three glasses at mine now once more.

Ive been to UK several times. Each time something on the wishlist gets left out, and equally, something unexpected gets lobbed in. In the last forty odd years that I’ve been visiting, there’ve been some changes...some small, some hugely noticeable...

But, in all the tours and detours, it’s almost always been a group of three. In childhood and teenhood it was my parents and me, and now it’s my own teen and his parents...that too, will change by next year if all goes well.

On the job

One normal workday at a focus group

an ear suddenly gives up on the job.

The work goes on – the bistro, wine and soup

discussed threadbare. Just one out of the loop.

In time that ear’s cajoled back. Then some blob

blocks out breath and smell with a growth that throbs.

Growth in the wrong directions. Breathless, stooped.

Some sense is lost once airways or sounds stop.

A blade intervenes and lets in some air.

But now it’s a different one that is cracked –

while the eye’s gone about its work unaware,

it’s also dimmed its own light down. Cataract!

All senses will fail. The warnings are there -

split open in focus groups with trivial facts.