Ought To, Need To

Ought to be more than mere feelings

Ought to feel more than an urge

Ought to serve something more than the self

Ought to resist, need to purge

Penchant for serving mere mammon

Proclivity for take and take more

Ought to give back, need to give in return

Need to even the score.

Ought to vest interest in many

Need to voice justice the same

Need to do something, we have to,

To be worthy of human

In name.

Ought to look to the future,

Need to see to the kids,

Ought to remember our parents,

Need to do what they did.

Need to consider the options,

Ought to speak out, ought to vote,

Need to acknowledge there’s much more at stake

Ought to know that by rote.

Need to relive the lies told

Ought to remember result,

Need to do more than shrug shoulders

Need to read up and consult.

Need to recollect rights here

Ought to reckon responsible too

Need to quit saying nothing changes

Ought to matter to you.

Ought to get on with the housework

Need to remember each task

Ought to and need to, quite different,

Must remember whenever I’m asked.

Need to go now and cook some,

Need to is my middle name,

Ought to is in there as well though,

I guess we’re something the same.

Human with plenty of options,

The ought to’s, the needs and the must,

In it together, we all are,

Need to go now and do what I trust.

Ought to be cleaning, I told you,

Ought to but I have a choice,

Need to’s a whole other matter,

Need to needs to be voiced.

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Flat Earth And Other Lies

Ancient cardboard cutouts cast aside

Flat mannequins of earth before

Indifferent distortions

Politically dressed

Lying uselessly

Who can believe

Inflated

Serving

Cause

Coin In The Cork

Did you really imagine that the champagne cork would hold the bubbles, tickled against your nose, inhaled, expecting taste with closed eyes, breath of a memory, stored with the photos, still whole, coin inserted just so, to have and to hold, all worldly goods…

Did you really think that, paused in time, time would pause, hold the sparkled scent, corked, as it were, effervescent smiles in frozen pose, dancing into the unknown, wondering, wondering, hopeful…

Did you really understand then that hope is gaseous, elusive, needs catching constantly, requires work and give and take and would you have recorked, back then with that knowledge, for fear of coin slipping from inverted hub…

Did we really, in our wildest imaginings, if ever wild they were, and they were wild, believe that all the corks and celebrations would link, create the raft, float us homeward, always homeward, adrift at times, paddling, questioning views but always homeward…

Did we know and would we have cared or believed that for every celebratory cork we would also drink of pain and swallow loudly, gulping back that first dance, want to shuffle off the floor, till we knew the music changed again…

And did we dance. Oh, how we’ve danced! And drunk from champagne bottles by the neck, exploding corks to atmosphere and airy, practiced expectations, rejoiced and wept and found the means to keep the bubbles scented in the cork, the coin still holds.

Mask…eurade!

A mask is a life, dancing in time

To waltz to a music, only in mind

Never to show truth, peeking through fear

Swinging between notes, only you hear

And as each dance, clothed behind a smile

Moves to a rhythm, mesmerised awhile

But alas this journey, as each mask falls

Slipping into song, another opening calls

Bringing us closer, this charade we start

Finalised at last, when the lights depart

And in this dark, the truth is seen

A beauty at last, where the mask had been.

(In reply to momus’s Masked Surprise!) 🙂