COMMUNICATION

[A response to Michael Mallows]

I’ve finally considered every option

(And as not one has proved to be ideal,

Including all you’ve said on post-adoption)

I thought I’d tell you, Michael, how I feel.

Let’s spread them as a hand of cards before us,

Awarding each a plus or minus score –

And let’s ignore the negative dawn chorus:

“You can’t do that – it’s such a bloody bore!”

For, after all, what is communication?

(An obvious rhetorical request

Which really puts both sides of the equation,

While failing to suggest what is the best.)

So let's suppose we're on some lonely plateau,

Conversing by a campfire in the night.

And, since we're, more or less, in the same bateau,

We'll sink or swim with metaphoric might.

But that, of course, does not apply to Michael -

Or does it? It depends what he prefers.

As well to totter on a uni-cycle,

As try for contact in the form of verse.

Communication is a messy muddle.

No one can really know what we're about.

We might as well just smile and touch and cuddle

Rather than talk, or kick and scream, or shout!

The phone and tom-tom are so unaesthetic;

The internet and e-mail are a bore.

Mind-reading is simply tele-pathetic

It’s something that we safely can ignore.

Communication, then, is an illusion,

A dream, a joke, the sustenance of fools.

But true to form, we can effect a fusion

By application of NLP tools.

So body language goes as does mind reading

It’s obvious I must adopt the post!

And turn my back on entry cues and leading

And let the Royal Mail become the host.

Dorset 1998