Notes On What I Should Be Doing (Poetry)
20th April 2025
Once upon a time ...
I followed some kind of routine
but as the years went by I found
those good intentions I used to wake up with
rarely lasted much past that first cup of tea
before a spontaneous distraction
hijacked my attention and took it off
in a totally different direction and
seduced my all-too-willing imagination
so thoroughly that I forgot completely
what it was I should have been doing —
what pressing chore I was now complicit
in ignoring in favour of something clearly
less important but far more absorbing —
the impulse to simply spend some time
less responsibly and a little more frivolously
like daydreaming while casually tidying
a drawer and finding some old letters
to muse over... idly sorting through
the button tin and matching up the sets
according to size and colour... or repotting
one of the plants I can never remember the
name of in the hope it might flower given
fresh soil and more space — those sort of tasks
that are rarely scheduled but get done
at random — on some sudden abstract whim.
I was never that keen on housework in any case
and since discovering how very patient
dust remains there seems no urgency
at all to disturb it — best left in peace
I reason since no dire consequence arises —
the world doesn’t stop but goes on in
blissful unawareness of my truancy.
These days a poem’s more likely to
get written — certainly taking precedence
over washing-up or laundry. For aesthetic
reasons I’ll change the frames of pictures round
rather than clean the windows or the floor —
what needs to be done eventually will
get done — meanwhile a thousand thoughts
occur... ideas to tempt me and weaken
an already weak resolve...
I followed some kind of routine
but as the years went by I found
those good intentions I used to wake up with
rarely lasted much past that first cup of tea
before a spontaneous distraction
hijacked my attention and took it off
in a totally different direction and
seduced my all-too-willing imagination
so thoroughly that I forgot completely
what it was I should have been doing —
what pressing chore I was now complicit
in ignoring in favour of something clearly
less important but far more absorbing —
the impulse to simply spend some time
less responsibly and a little more frivolously
like daydreaming while casually tidying
a drawer and finding some old letters
to muse over... idly sorting through
the button tin and matching up the sets
according to size and colour... or repotting
one of the plants I can never remember the
name of in the hope it might flower given
fresh soil and more space — those sort of tasks
that are rarely scheduled but get done
at random — on some sudden abstract whim.
I was never that keen on housework in any case
and since discovering how very patient
dust remains there seems no urgency
at all to disturb it — best left in peace
I reason since no dire consequence arises —
the world doesn’t stop but goes on in
blissful unawareness of my truancy.
These days a poem’s more likely to
get written — certainly taking precedence
over washing-up or laundry. For aesthetic
reasons I’ll change the frames of pictures round
rather than clean the windows or the floor —
what needs to be done eventually will
get done — meanwhile a thousand thoughts
occur... ideas to tempt me and weaken
an already weak resolve...