POEM (Nothing is for nothing)


Nothing is for nothing although probably it’s not
For much and the way things seem always to fall out
One can expect the sea to be gone when you get there
With wood for building the boat. That is to say
Having spent more than half this life training for sail
The bastards went and invented the engine
So we trained for engine and they decided to go back
To sail for the good of the environment and from
This a gentleman and a scholar should have learned.
But only yesterday my girl sends me a letter
Telling me she’s changed her mind
About most of the things she ever thought about
Which is not many things but most of them used to be
To do with me but now they’re to do with someone
Else or so it appears. Everything is connected
To where it all started so I’m going to go back to
The scene of my nativity and find a few people
And ask some very pointed questions indeed
Because I know some of those people better
Than I know myself and that’s saying something.
I truly believe being born under the stars
Everything has its proper place to enjoy. Time
Was I knew where everything was in my world
And although I didn’t look like my father behaving
Like him was proof enough of a certain
Version of events. God was above everything
In his omniscience and one could trust
The sun to be there even when you couldn’t
See it or feel. Now I got this letter from my girl
And she says those philosophy books I sent her
She’s been reading and they’ve turned her mind
Which isn’t saying very much it being not
Much of a mind. I don’t know what I was thinking
She was sufficient as she was although not
I guess beyond improvement yet I always saw her as
A good girl a decent girl and a girl to trust but it seems
One of the mistakes I’ve made in my protracted life
Is to trust all the wrong people. Maybe I shouldn’t have
Trusted anyone because my mother always said
People are never as good as their word and indeed
Almost surely as bad as it and I shouldn’t have listened
When they said bring your wood and boat-
Building equipment down to the sea today and we’ll go
A-roving across the oceans for a day or two it’ll make a  
Man of you and there’s adventure into the bargain.
So here we are and they’ve taken away the sea
And hidden it and we’re standing around like fools
At a brain quiz and did I mention they’ve got
Our money I think I forgot to mention that
And hard-earned it was too goes without saying.
That’s one of the things I’ve always been poor
At holding on to my money. My girl used
To put her hands in my pockets and take out
The coins she found there and go buy her some clothes
Or some candy but I loved her so it didn’t matter.
I wish I didn’t love her like I do or perhaps
Now I don’t I’m not sure it’s so easy to change
The way I feel just like that in an instant. A man
Has his character and the way he is and he can’t just
Change it like that in an instant even if he wants to
Which maybe he does and maybe he don’t it depends
On the circumstances and to tell the truth these are
Trying times and one’s judgment is clouded.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll meet another girl and
It’ll all be ok or it’ll all start over again
The same but slightly altered like when you awaken
From a serious hallucination that lasted
About six months to be told the real world
Is there in front of you where the sea used to be
But the sea is gone now and all it meant. But I recall
In those thinking books how folk have often
Questioned the nature of reality like is this
A sea I see before me or a mountain or anything at all
But I got so confused I just had to kiss
My girl to relax myself because at least
When you’re kissing you know where you are
And why or think you do. Now she says all that’s
In the past and there then followed several paragraphs
To do with the nature of time I didn’t understand
About how time past and time future are
All in time present or something like that I don’t know
Except it’s getting late and I’m awful hungry
And beginning to wish the end was beginning
But I think the beginning hasn’t even begun yet
Which means there’s a long way to go although
You can only stand at the edge of a void for so long
Before it seeps into your bones and becomes part of you
And you assume its character and even its appearance.
We’ve been standing here staring at vacancy
Since before I was born and occasionally
A delivery van comes by and delivers but none of it
Stays for very long it’s what you would call ephemeral
Whereas you could always trust the sea to be there
Which is why I tell you I came but only to be deflated
Like a thing full of something and now it’s not.