Cotton wool.

Have you ever stuffed cotton wool in your ears?
No? You really should try it!
You have heard about how drugs give you a high
Well, cotton wool is different.
It is a new sensation, called a low.

No? You don’t believe me?
Well, try it then.
Got it stuffed in your ears yet?
What? You think this is a poem?
That all you have to do is hear it?

Sorry, if you are going to hear any further
you need to get real!
You will miss the low
if you don’t now go
and stuff cotton wool in your ears!

OK. Can you hear me?

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

You have lost something haven’t you?
Something you took for granted.
You are not exactly sure what
but the world feels deader doesn’t it.
You can still see
but the music of life is shut away.

You are in a prison
isolated from the world.
Frustrating isn’t it,
when I lower my voice
or turn away so that you cannot read my lips.

Is it your fault that
you cannot hear me?
No, its my fault.
I know you have cotton wool
stuffed in your ears.

So who is doing the disabling?
You or me?
OK, take out the cotton wool
and live again  amongst the sounds of the world,
and never forget
what it is like to be deaf.

Tim Richards, Oct.2^nd, 2004.

Sue

I know a woman who takes in strays.

She looks after them while they are with her,

let’s them go back out into the world

and she never refuses if one comes back,

filling her life with their plaintive calls for help.

Sue’s strays are not cats, but people

who call, phone and text her with their problems.

She is endlessly patient and compassionate

judging no-one and always offering

help, advice, someone to listen to.

The funny thing is that she is a stray herself,

often lost to the vagaries of fate

in her emotions, her lovers, her life.

Sometimes Sue needs help, too

And I am glad to give back to her.

Tim Richards

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