NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day twenty-three - Warning labels

Warning labels

May be acerbic.  May mock.  May experience
emotions not so easily described.  Grumpiness
can happen.  May want to help and get frustrated
when he cannot.  May mysteriously need
affection and although not ambitious, may
have a strange need to excel in everything,
without breaking sweat.  May guess your meaning
before you finish speaking.  May find the news
disturbing.  May find leaders unnerving
and likely think they all are jerks.  May conclude
that all of politics and media
are broken, beyond the wit of man to fix.
May look grim.  May mutter.  May slouch,
as if looking for something, along the gutter.

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day twenty-two - Hard-boiled calculus

Hard-boiled calculus

It seems the town is filled with dark and rain

as through the bleakest streets I drag my shoes

with little left to lose and less to gain.

It's ever and again always the same

the big guys always win while small fry lose.

The town, it seems is filled with dark and rain

behind the muscle hired to make things plain

by pounding all my muscles to one bruise--

so little left to lose and what's to gain?

But prowling through the streets seems little strain

and this is just the sort of place she'd choose

a darkened down-town bar out of the rain

but the question is should she be found again?

Her?  Maybe without the wig...  but I'm confused

that woman still has things to lose and gain

no reason to admit she once was "Jane..."

So  I'll finish my drink and point my shoes

back out into my town, the dark and rain;

my refuge from the maths of loss and gain.

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day twenty-one - The unfinished businessman

The unfinished businessman


makes his money doing business in inverted commas
and the far-East, dealing with situations
and anyone too slow to pull away their hand
from his tanned but slightly all too greasing palm.
He has been rumoured to deal the odd card
from the bottom of his PowerPoint deck
although nothing can be proved

but pragmatism is our business

as he likes to explain
to raw and still a touch too ethical recruits
over sushi in some backstreet little place
where he will tip the waitress heavily
but also slap her arse
should the opportunity present

I've probably just made her rent
for the week he'll say
on the way back to the office
and this is essentially my point
that's the nature of the world:
some people work,
some people pay and now...

I need to have an informal chat
with the police commissioner see if you
can grab a bicycle rickshaw and I'll see you
back in the office but remember:
we need to be cunning, although... if anybody asks
it is "superior domain knowledge"
that gives us our edge.