It’s all fun and games until you have to get out

The lake is forty degrees fahrenheit,
The kayak is too small.
You turn grey, your eyes narrow, fight or flight?

When your piano fingers, finally
Make the crucial trust-fall,

Suspended breath, landing so gracelessly.

Geese converse across the lake-top, green, clear,

We paddle, hush, enthrall ~

The sun plays hide and seek, swifts dive and veer.

The mountains wear a sari of blue mist,

Every lake-house, quaint, small
Mumbles by us with the pull of a wrist.

A gentle rain comes down, urging us back
Heed a warm kitchen’s call!

Our wakes stalk us faster to the task.

The dock is in sight and you’ve gone quiet
The next order, too tall
You see it, and frankly i imply it.

“How am I gonna get outta this thing?”

Your boat comes to a stall.

I don’t know either, big girl, I’m thinking.

I roll up my jeans and search for shallow
Grip your pull-cord and haul
And we flail, and fail, get wet, and bellow.

We’re only half frozen below the knee
Cups of coffee, a shawl,

If we weren’t, I’d ask you to marry me.

One of Many

What tragic, shallow mouths-
Lip-syncing the obviousness
Of Generation Lowest-Common-Denominator,
Afraid of being photographed
At a protest, well why are you there?
Don’t you want to use your hands
For more than masturbating
To the objects the rat race affords you?
So thrilled with the latest 1s and 0s
So many zeroes devoid of even one
Half-decent intention, too busy discussing
How life can best be digitally replicated-
To cultivate a sense of dignity,
A real connection to the unusual-
Twenty million neutral coloured polos
Aware of the unfolding, too focused
On beauty sleep to act on the unrest
Beyond signing an electronic petition
Just a pile of tragic mouths
Barely brave enough to whisper
“Something isn’t right here.”