Writing from the stemistry lab
Progress
by Marilyn Longstaff
An arrow in flight,
she is a single-minded killer,
sings, ‘simply the best’, as she packs
whatever she needs to move on
in her compact suitcase.
She doesn’t mourn the dodo
or the horse-drawn cart, never regrets
the death of the letter, despises
sentimentality and nostalgia,
wishes things could change faster.
She is mercurial, smells of sea fret
and ozone, will not stay
out of a sense of duty,
refuses to entertain caution,
sleeps soundly in her silver skin.
She flings all of the past in the compost bin,
holds all of the future in her certain grin.
Potential
An un-inflated orange balloon,
you can blow him up to crisis-thin skin
and he cries with a high pitched whine
when you pinch him and let him down.
He’s there
and he knows what he can do
although, often he prefers to hide,
regards pride as the greatest sin.
He can snooze for England, but
give him a lot of effort and a little air
and he will fly; then he’s awake 24/7,
his greatest ambition to be realised.
Volatile in extreme heat
and cowardly in the presence of hat pins,
NO, he is not to be relied on.