by Martin Anton Smith

I am the Non-Captain,

And this is my log.

This is the non-captain’s log.

I am the non-captain because this is how I feel.

The feeling today is that I am not winning.

oh & how to analyse this undelightful quandary.

This is (like everything) part truth & part mirage.

Truth? Because an argument can be made that I’ve ef’d up.

Especially if you point of view is that of a hamster-wheel-loving-careerist-robot,

A dopey denizen of the ‘rules based order’ (which just makes up the rules arbitrarily).

Mirage?, because we all know being cold, existing in a dampish room sans sunlight –

Will make any mammal feel depressed & see the world in ‘bleak filter’.

Knowledge is power & that’s why I’m not too worried about these perfidy polarities.

Let me continue.

Of course, my last Poem talked of the antidote to feelings of bleakness being dopamine via exercise –

& this Poem is really an distant echo of that.

So I really must apologise,

That once again this Poem holds no new information.

If I am accused of rehashing, I plead guilty.

If I am hauled up to Creative Court,

& accused of the crime of ‘mish-mashery’ – I will solumnly agree.

However, If I am prosecuted because my ‘artistic license’ has expired,

I will plead ‘no contest’ & mumble inaudibly about authoritarian government overreach.

In a strange twist of fate this will make the judge automatically renew my artistic licence,

& throw all my charges out.

The gallery will then in rambunctious celebration hoist me on their shoulders,

shouting.

“Hazaar to the deadbeat poet, the feeble man, the partial-myth & the not quite really a legend”.

And to such luke warm charges I will accept happilly.

For While beggars can’t be choosers

Deadbeats can be Poets.