1370
This coming week I thought I could laze,
Watch TV, cut the grass or read,
But work has seeped in to fill up the days.
This coming week
Is now packed hour by hour with tasks that breed
Like flies above the wormery, a haze
Of buzzing nuisances contented to feed
On quiet moments, interrupting ways
Which could rejuvenate and might succeed
If work had not tried to set ablaze
This coming week.
Brian Hick August 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 18.8.25
901
Even though I'm on the early train
It's well past dawn so no sign of the fox
Or vixen to cheer me, just the same
Commuters, whose sour faces mock
Spring's imminence... but that was yesterday
And those few lines were all I'd time to write
Before the fog of routine seeped its way
Into my mind and subdued all that might
Have served to make this poem worth your time
Rather than another morbid rant
Against a world where work is made the prime
Consideration, and art is naught but Kant.
How easy it would be if we could live,
Without the need to earn, and freely give.
Brian Hick February 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 22.2.23
BS 1
I'm not used to filling out my time
Waiting for the next appointment
Who will probably be late
And meanwhile I'm at a loose end
With nothing that's essential
To the smooth running of this place;
But I'm annoyed by waste
Which only functions to abuse
My agitated passion to achieve,
To complete one thing
Then move on to the next
Rather than sit here suppressing grief.
If there's to be no fire in my belly
I might as well watch Countdown on the tele.
Brian Hick November 2010
©copyright Sally Hick 9.11.22
Ok. I've taken two weeks off but now
I need to get back to the norms of work;
No time to luxuriate or shirk
Responsibilities, for we must bow
Before the need to keep commerce alive -
The wheel of industry and toil which every day
Grinds on to ensure that each of us can pay,
Regardless of our needs to stay alive,
Substantive cash for things we do not want
But all must have, if profits are to rise
And banks and businesses, of a certain size,
Can feed their bonus margins and their kant.
While smaller fry must close up shop and leave,
Champagne still pops for subtler forms of greed.
Brian Hick January 2009
©copyright Sally Hick Jan 2022
Oh for the days when I could slip away
At lunchtime to the sea, where I could sniff
Th'ozone, and dippers skimming over pools,
Left easing in a midday warmth, that fools
My senses to believe this fragile life
Could last forever, if only I could day;
But working every day, I've found no time
To walk down to the shore, as winter drifts
Its way onto the beach, and cannot curl
Myself into the silence of the swirl
Of spume cresting the pebbles as it lifts
The flotsam of the day out of my mind.
When daily tension's grind tears me apart
Our Sussex sea alone can heal my heart.
Brian Hick December 2008
©copyright S Hick 2021
Work
Past one o'clock before I got to bed
And up again at six to spend the day
At Selsdon High. I had hoped that I may
Have found the time to really get my head
Around last night's Ivanov or the National's
Portrait Exhibition, but I find
They've faded and the focus of my mind
Is Tax returns and over worked professionals.
Why can't I find a middle way between
The hurley-burley of the working life
With all its, tensions, nit-picking and strife
And the intellectual haven of what's seen.
If I retired I could have Art each day
But could I stand a life out of the fray?
Brian Hick Nov 2008
©copyright 2021 S Hick
Plain hard work and Time
It started with The Eagle of the Ninth
On Children's Hour, a million years ago,©
When, sat before the fire, I seemed to grow
Into the Roman virtues that by stealth
Drip fed into me over the years
Until I was convinced the only way
To achieve a goal was simply to gainsay
The luck or privilege which my peers
Seemed to attract in shoals, and turn myself
To solitary effort, never praised,
Which slowly, etched by nightly study, raised
My school exams to doctorate, and a wealth
Of quiet satisfaction, never prized
Except within the sparkle of your eyes.
Brian Hick
©copyright 2021 S Hick
