Questions have arisen about using the wondrous antibiotic
This Utopian cure for all ills; it’s almost quixotic.
But the evolution of pathogens is now pretty chaotic
Defences challenged, no control, it’s becoming idiotic.

You see: too much use of medicine can be close to narcotic
An antidote for every ailment, it’s now symbiotic.
We are prisoners to these drugs – it’s practically despotic.
Treat medicine with care, lest you become dependent and neurotic.

Empty beaches, empty cottages and a yachtless sea
Just fishermen and gulls, no tourist cream teas
But now Easter is here again and that Spring time vacation
And sleepy Cornwall awakes from it’s quiet hibernation.
M4, A30, Flybe and South West Trains
The arteries from London begin to flow again.

Trebetherick’s lanes are clogged with Fulham mothers in Chelsea tanks
Setting up home pre arrival of their husbands from the banks.
The car parks are bursting and the estuary is chocablock
With boats, wetsuits and debutantes from Port Isaac right up to Rock.
The cliff paths are rampant with binoculars and bird watch prying
But it’s the breasts on Polzeath beach that these chaps are really spying.

Archie has become quite expert at making castles in the sand
And older brother Bertie is happier in the water than on the land.
Lucinda prefers the rock pools, catching little shrimps and fish
For nanny to cook and peel and add to tonight’s seafood dish.
Mummy sips some rosé with Clapham friends staying just next door
And Daddy drinks too much beer, bangs on, becomes a bore.

For a special treat one night we’ll take the ferry across to Padstow
And supper at Rick Steins: “It’s the very best, you know!”
They serve proper fish and chips with a real knife and fork
No newspaper wrapped in grease here, nor nasty brown sauce.
A sprig of parsley and perhaps some mushy peas and squid
With a glass of Chardonnay, no change from fifty quid.

All too soon the holiday comes to a happy end
Weight-boards are packed away (they’re the latest trend).
Holiday cottages are now cleaned; doors shut and locked
Their inhabitants to join the roads that are already blocked.
And grumpy locals celebrate at the departure of guests so raucous
They count the pennies, shut up shop and wait for lucrative August!

“I want to…”; “One day I will…”; “My real ambition is…”
Our aspirations grow tired, they lose their novel fizz.
You know your own ability – the truth is inescapable
Don’t wait for fate to show it’s hand to prove that you are capable.

Tomorrow, oh tomorrow, you know it makes so much sense!
Tomorrow comes, then stutters, you once again lament.
Yesterday’s the previous day’s tomorrow, you know you vacillate;
You again sought ambition on credit, you’ve inertia without abate.

Your fear is that your dreams are mere personal vanity,
You dread being mocked, being accused of bare insanity.
Self doubt, protecting pride or pure procrastination;
You void your desire to start with diversion and distraction.

In today’s social media world a cornucopia of views is beckoning
Burning ambition, preach, exhort, a perpetual day of reckoning.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the platform of the self righteous
TV chat show, Hollywood, a plague of celebrititus.

Apps and chats extol utopia across the world wide web
Spinning their silver gossamer to both inspire and to impress.
Voyeurism, keeping up with the Jones’s, it pure prevarication;
This electronic magnetism curtails you in frustration.

Those in life who end up achieving true greatness
Have no truck for delay nor aspirational lateness
They set their course, unerring, they are sure and they’re tenacious
They ignore the doubters, quash the critics and thwart the mendacious.

To achieve one’s dreams you need both diligence and utter focus
And not get bogged down in self-examination and all that hocus pocus.
You need courage to take the knocks and unwavering self belief
You need the stamina to knuckle down and the drive to proceed.

Churchill, Jobs and Bowie, were greats because they made the world their own
They had surety and spirit, not mitigation, mope nor moan.
So be true to yourself and see out your heartfelt dream
Lest you grow old and say “If only I could have been…”

As I step over the threshold of another new place
I seek my host’s identity via his bookcase.
Be this the home of a new acquaintance, or a friend I know well
A man’s collection of books explains more than hearsay can tell.
They say that: “the eyes are the window to a man’s mind”
But the novels and volumes say so much more, you will find.

I scan the shelves and I take in the scene
To solve the puzzle, to understand what it means.
Displayed before me is a passport of this person’s life
A chronology of a journey of both good times and strife.
Also here are the paths that have are yet to be tread
The unstamped visas of books still to be read.

Paperbacks well thumbed by Frederick Forsyth and Agatha Christie
From holiday reading thrillers to whodunit murder mystery
Light hearted facts astound in this year’s Schott’s Miscellany
Guinness Book of Records impresses and whiles away afternoons rainy.
These books are everyday pleasures, but mere pawns on this chessboard
They squeeze in at the sides, supporting the bigger lords.

Far grander, and at an eye catching height
The classics by authors whose pens wielded might
Hardy, Austin, Dickens, Shakespeare (with added appendage).
Compulsory school reading once resented, now recommended.
”Look what I have read, you really must I insist!
No knowledge of Chaucer, why take the risk?”

There are thick books and serious books, books of great breeding
Books of vast length that would take months of slow reading.
Some are far too large for our hurried lives
Best wait ‘til retirement when we’ll have much more time.
And then when we read them we’ll regret we did not do so before
For the knowledge we needed when younger, is of no use anymore.

We travel the world seeking knowledge and answers
Asking questions, debating and testing the senses
And yet so much of life is right here in our bookcases
Pages of emotion of facts and of places.
So show who you are via the books in your home,
But read and absorb what you already own.