3 O’clock News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 o’clock in the office

I feel like yawning a lot.

So taking the long route through

To the coffee machine I trot.

 

The office has secret passages

Unbarred, oldish windows;

Strips of the busy old city

Each one of them shows.

 

Further afield are rooftops

Tin tiles, dirty, broken;

Every time I look out

I hunt for a feline token.

 

On dirty, broken rooftops,

You have to have a cat;

Hunting for his dinner

Or just smugly sat.

 

Imagine my pleasure

When today I found

Not one but two – black and white –

On that rooftop ground.

 

The white seemed to be a tomcat

The black a plumpish girl;

She sat down for some grooming

Her tail in a casual curl.

 

He seemed hesitating

Waiting, watching her

Although all her attention

Was given to her fur.

 

Then very tentatively

Tom did attempt a kiss

Smack! She jumped and slapped him

With an angry hiss.

 

“Seize the moment,” I read

Not backward neither forward;

Peace must be here and now

That’s the crucial word.

 

So I saw the moment

This winter afternoon;

In the midst of crammed addresses

A moment of rare commune.

 

England, tarry awhile

This, here, is my city:

Busy, noisy, thriving

Not very serene or pretty.

 

But here in a nook, a corner

Amazing moment was that:

Calm in the midst of bustle

And one black, one white cat.

 

(Image copyright does not belong to me; words’ copyright does. So there.)

 

Lines Written In Early ’16

With some help from William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand crappy jokes,

While at a desk I sate reclined,

In that blue mood when the day evokes

Much sad thoughts in the mind.

 

To her layered works did the boss link

The human brain which in me sat;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What mess I’d made of that.

 

Through pursuits tough, and that lone year,

My career trailed its course;

And ’tis my faith if not my fear

Fate makes the way perforce.

 

The team around me worked and said,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:–

But the dirtiest joke which they made

Brought them a thrill of pleasure.

 

The budding year spreads out its fan,

To catch all chances fair;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there is purpose there.

 

If nothing’s chance, if all is meant,

If that’s what Fate is driving at,

Have I got reason to lament

What mess I’ve made of what?

 

 

Ode to Awesome

 

Season of mystery, fellow faithfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the deducing one;
Conspiring with him how to lead and chase
With clues the swines that round the city run;
To pack with clients the moss’d 221B,
And fill all case with ripeness to the core;
To please the crowd, and plump the prison cells
With the criminals; to set budding more,
And still more, later scours for Moriarty,
Until he thinks every day’s a party,
For Sherlock has o’er-screened and still sells.

Who hath not seen thee oft assisting the police?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a Hamlet piece,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the make-up kind;
Or by a half-split wall you would sleep,
Drows’d with the nicotine patches, while some crook
Earns Lestrade’s wrath and all his mood sours:
And sometimes like a shooter thou dost keep
Steady thy loaded hand across a nook;
Or with a spy homeless, with patient look,
Thou watchest the fast chasings hours by hours.

Where is the series four? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While tired crowds damn thy oft-tarrying way,
And soothe the troubled brain with Doctor Who;
When in a wailful choir the many fans mourn
Along comes Christmas special, bears Mycroft?
And there’s Mary – is the baby’s birth-day nigh?
To Ms Adler, or is ‘Sherl’ to Molly sworn;
Hudson still quips; calls now with treble soft
Moffat-Gatiss whistle from a seat aloft;
Fans’ gathering follows Twitter on the fly.

*with some help from John Keats.