Day New

Bringing new

Sun through the fog

Pink hue

Is the clarity of destiny for few

Who have chosen?

Will you?

Careful with your giving

Leading the fresh and the chosen

Who have reached for today

Day nearest when I

Lay

Day new now

I will be there today

Failing in Comfort

Too ready to meet the fight

Too assured and well fed

Of my needs I have one to meet

To release my greed and fear

Pity that still in comfort I tread

I sit

Lamenting my loss

Waiting for the tension to spread

And the door once more opened

The voices again speak inside my head

Light given

Hope to the dread

One page memorandum to self

live with integrity; what you nurture grows; be courageous; actions before plans; remember and keep promises; associate with people you admire and can learn from; it is who knows you and what they think of you that counts; true change can only happen in the now; when results are good look through the window, when results are poorly look in the mirror; inability to see yourself as you truly are makes seeing other things as they truly are impossible; do it, fix it, try it; think of what your work will make out of you rather than what it will give you; lead with your ears; identify what you are passionate about and aim to do more of it; dream big; if nobody will pay you to do what you love, you have a hobby not a career; character and values trump personality and looks; you will never achieve more than you think you can; you do not have the big picture beyond your own experience; life has a simple formula: challenge and response; nothing good happens by accident; give your students the exam ahead of time; what you neglect declines; when you see a problem you have a moment of truth: you have a choice how to respond; to lead you must believe a vision that is beyond your proven ability to realize; the path toward your vision becomes clearer with each step; accept everything that happens and your choice of response; spontaneity is not random, it takes hours of practice; more information makes decisions harder not easier; make sure you generate a reasonable number of mistakes; stick to what you can be best at; trust your gut; truth lurks in the metaphor; your values and purpose are defined by your actions; complexity causes lethargy and inertia; let freedom and responsibility coexist; seek simple crystalline concepts; results first – planning second; maintain a stop doing list; experiment; you control your choice of action, universal laws and principles control the consequences; direction is more important than speed; the way you see, your values, leads to what you do and what you do leads to the results you are getting; from the state of your heart proceeds the conditions of your life; thoughts blossom into deeds; disobedience to conscience make conscience blind; you reap what you sow; look after the goose and the golden eggs will follow; begin with the end in mind; between stimulus and response is our ability to choose; do what you say; satisfied needs do not motivate; diagnose before you prescribe; accurate paradigms explain, then guide; balance courage with consideration; good teams accommodate and capitalize on differences; model character and competence; the range of what you think and do is limited by what you fail to notice; put the problem before the answer; separate people from the problem; speak for a purpose; look through the eyes of different experts; insist on using objective criteria; all sunshine makes the desert; don’t defend your ideas, invite criticism and advice; there is plenty for everyone; trust, but verify; value differences; be proactive; stand for something; be open; know what’s expected; use right materials and equipment; do what you do best; recognize contributions; create a caring environment; human see, human do; opinions count; connect with purpose; find the right fit; focus on strengths; respect the individual; define the right outcomes; select for talent; focus on the future; keep track of own performance and learnings; value world class performance; study the best; a compass in every pocket is better than a chicken in every pot; transparency; disclosure; accountability; you build strong teams by treating people differently; to influence others allow yourself to be influenced; insist on realism; know yourself; informality is critical to candor; how you meet your commitments is at least as important as whether you meet them; strategy must be constructed by those who must execute it; divided responsibility means that nobody is responsible; link your long term intent to your next immediate action; you accomplish what you measure, therefore measure the right things; acknowledge the truth about the results that have been created, accept ownership of the choices that drove the results, declare a path forward; at the end of the day, we either have reasons or results, reasons don’t count; you can have anything you want, you just can’t have everything; if you have 60 minutes to make a point take 40 minutes to plan it and 20 minutes saying it; you are perfectly aligned to get the results you’ve been getting; with people slow is fast and fast is slow; seek first to understand, then to be understood; to know and not to use is not yet to know; you don’t keep digging up a plant to see how its growing; whoever owns the gold makes the rules; the longer you project that you have a consistent set of standards from which you’ll never deviate, the more people will learn to trust you; what you are speaks far more loudly than anything you say or do; things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least; manage from the left brain, lead from the right; rather than things and time, focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and accomplishing results; organize around priorities; 80 percent of the results flow out of 20 percent of the activities; focus on interests not positions; invent options for mutual gain; insist on objective criteria; a problem well stated is a problem half solved; there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come; you can’t see past a choice you don’t understand; know why you want something; never ask the barber if you need a haircut; when you pick up one end of the stick you pick up the other; victimism gives your future away; creativity thinks up new things, innovation does new things; a place for everything and everything in its place; we all leave a legacy be intentional about yours; remember yourself – you are alive; be aware of your environment, it takes part in forming your thoughts.

Drive

Do you behave like what you want is important to you?

What could you do if your life depended on it?

What have you done about it today?

Are you listening to your conscience?

What does it say?

(17.09.09)

Fleeting moment

I know what I did with those

hopes.

Dreams will be decided

from now on.

What I did can be done

no longer.

My future follows every action

started and begun.

(1997 - 2009)

Age of the Acrynom

Hiding

Carefully

Constructed

Names

For

Brevity...

Words

Become

Brandings

(27.08.97 and reconstructed in 17.09.09)

"Enjoy the upside"

A marketing cliche for fools

they know that

no-one is

ever satisfied

"You should be getting more"

Which gets you

Have they got you?

(from 22.11.1997)

Your Apparition

Holy itself beats its

chest in awe of

the insightful

awesome

beauty

of your original

action

(19.11.1997)

Rabble

for babble the

girl and her shoe

I only dabble when

something is new

here is your ladder

you know what to do

all mad as the hatter

we believe this is true

(05.10.1997)

Tender

to the edge

of repair

Ripened by the

knowledge of recent

despair,

Walking with

bare feet around the town

fair the clowns they

swallow all things,

they don't seem

to care

(14.09.1997)

Dilly

for

Dally

Mixing for Nelly

Life and

These

Lollies

in

Bags

(02.09.1997)

Paparazzi

Camera

In your face

Dying

Tales

Flash the royal lady

Still unable to let her go

Even as life slipped from her

You aimed to hold her image

For more gain

A flash, a flash, a flash

You blow a flickered flame

(Written 02.09.1997 in response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales 31.08.1997)

And Then

Now

I notice

I breath

I am thinking

Uncommon to realise

The odds of not being

Alive

(30.07.1997)

Council Worker's Revenge

That person

you

saw

leaning on a shovel

may

well

one day be seated

in the tractor used

to

fill

in

your

grave

(30.07.1997)

Shiver

me walking up the parade

flinch for tomorrow

for every next day

move without watching

he stares at the sun

rest may just follow

when all this is done

(14.09.97 While travelling in a bus home from work in Vancouver, Canada I passed a naked man with long hair and a full beard walking down the street with a pained expression on his face. I thought of him and wrote this poem)

The unguided hand

Walking with you

This evening

Morning

And still

Everyone is different

But

We are all afraid

Of being blamed

Most, all the time

Knowing we all love to take our parts

From the crowd

A private bureaucracy

Sold off in separate lots

Chipped away from a big ole block

Now running separately in function

They found one piece depended on the other

So we're trying to glue it all back again

(Written 14.10.96 while working for Signaling Control UK that was one of several privatised companies spun out from the British Railways)

Brains left the building

After reaching a critical mass

The intelligence was replaced by rhetoric

And somewhere along the line, equilibrium

Maintaining the status quo became sound

It was decided, there's nothing else to learn

(Written 14.10.96 while backpacking in York, England)

Small room

Small door

Old lamp

Large shade

Room, real I think and clean

Past lingers

Cool and warm

Another door leads in to the mirror

And our reflections before bed

It rains outside

And there is the smell of breakfast

Tenderness

Do you own your thoughts if required?

Can you purchase my suggestions?

I already sold that one you asked me about

Just the other day

Under foot, in bag

I hold the thoughts still tenderly,

Now they are in my hand

In this noisy world

All

I

Want

To

Hear

Is

The

Sound

Of

My

Voice

(15.05.1997)

You should not see me

1. You should not even try

2. It will change our relationship

3. You and I

4. Meaning should not reside from where

5. The words have been spoken

6. But simply as words that are there

7. As they are and remain

8. Long after the breath that wrote them

9. Here

10. For those born after

11. With a meeting

12. Things always change

13. Doubts and pretences

14. Get between you and your friends

(first written 05.05.1996 and reworked 18.08.2009)

Covenant partner

1. Healing service, a world outreach

2. For a dollar a day

3. Already seventy million subscribers

4. To online live streaming

5. Watch for our new bilingual affiliates

6. Do you have prayers needing answers?

7. Send them to us

8. Your first month's subscription is free

9. Tune in every Sunday

10. Place your hands on the monitor

11. Receive your blessing

12. Parishioners

13. You can be stronger

14. May your demons be gone

(first drafted 24.03.1996, revised 16.08.2009)

The only day

1. The decision to make, this time

2. Unknown consequences to be

3. The directions taken

4. Destinations located

5. This moment being

6. The only time a unique

7. Happening

8. Done in this way

9. As natural progression

10. No logic or explanation

11. Simply acceptance

12. No perfection required

13. Just listening and action

14. The kind voice spoken

(first written 25.03.1996, retranslated 16.08.2009)

Whopping great big

1. Fire to keep us warm this night

2. Surrounded by a conical canvas

3. Having time described above

4. The day brought some sunshine at last

5. The size of flame increased and still

6. We enjoy the glow

7. Even though time for sleeping we are

8. Aware

9. The rest will be described above

10. Three times over the same dimension of fun

11. Enveloped by the moment

12. Unshaking the past

13. Momentarily realising they are truly alive

14. In this whopping great big smoking pipe

(Loose recollections from a night in a Inuit tipi sleeping with an open fire, Easter Day on Salt Spring Island, British Columia, Canadia - 07.04.1996)

Sympathy cards: packet of ten

1. Wrapped and sold in bulk as

2. Economies of scale are due

3. One for now perhaps and others in store

4. Now sorrowed prepared

5. To offer condolences

6. On sale at local

7. Retirement homes this offer is sure not to

8. Last

9. The shelves do not choose their tenants

10. But bulk bought cards

11. Packaged and sold

12. One packet should last for a while

13. Who buys sympathy en mass?

14. One saving time would need none!

First written on 11th April 1996, stemmed from a conversation with Jean

Two seats free

1 Crowded bus and yet here are these two seats

2 Free near a blotched, gray haired old man

3 Exhibiting for the people this day

4 From his three seats in exile

5 Repeating

6 Words, smells and phrases too loudly

7 Drawing whispers and pouting disdain
8 Rearranging his hair that's not there

9 He continues to say the same words over again

10 Speaking in utter confusion

11 At how a woman can buy both stockings and shoes

12 And wear out the stockings leaving high heels looking new

13 "I just don't understand it!"

14 "Why are they different?"

(reworked from 23.03.96 poem written in Vancouver, Canada)