“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.