Getting your life back on track?

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How often do you hear people talk about 'getting their life back on track.'?

But that's daft. Your life is never off track - how can it be?

You go along from day to day laying down your own track, like in the old days of the 'Wild West' when the locomotive used to carry track with it and lay it ahead, section by section. And that is how they pushed out into unknown territory. And that is what we do, Anna.

What happened when we weren't looking?

Streaky sunlight through
unwashed windows -
unfinished crosswords in 
yellowing newspapers, strewn
across a boarded floor.

An old iron bedstead
quietly rusting, its naked springs
bent and twisted, 
a work of art.

Torn wallpaper,
a damp patch by the window,
scratched blue lino, and
a cracked washstand -
hair in the plughole -
a bare bulb, hanging from
a frayed flex.

Is this the room?
The room where it happened?
A lifetime ago?

And are there ghosts?
Hanging around in the stubborn silence?
Can you feel them?
Can you sense them?
Something,
Anything, to reassure me that
things live on, somewhere.

But there's nothing -
Just emptiness.

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A sombre poem perhaps, but we can't always be enjoying ourselves, can we? Where would the world be if everyone  went about enjoying themselves?

I think we have become a bit too hedonistic. It all started when they began making shirts which buttoned all the way up the front. Manly shirts used only to have two or three buttons at the neck. You had to pull them over your head. That was a proper shirt.

Trainers. That's another thing that's led us on the downward path. I mean why do so many people wear trainers when they're not training for anything? I blame Paul McCartney. He's always wearing them. I bet he wears them with a dinner suit. What kind of role model is that?

Ties. Nobody wears them now - except certain women 'celebs'. Yes, I know the word is 'celebrity' but it gets shortened. Like many other words. And it's not just Liverpudlians that do it (although they probably started it - Paul Mc. again - and his Beatle friends. And that's something else... should it not be 'Beetles'? Or were they trying to be clever, with 'Beat'? But what about the 'le'. Is that a touch of French? Le Beat? Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, I can't sit here all night, Anna. I am off out. To see a group called The Vigilantes. They played at The Cavern as a supporting group to the aforementioned Beatles and many other famous sixties groups. I'll give them the once-over.

Undying Love

George