Work In Progress
And the noise, the noise,
It’s all white in my head.
And all I want,
Is to go back to bed.
Endless lists within lists of things I must do,
The priorities of others, rising like a tide,
Wave after wave of them locked in a queue.
And I’m drowning, not waving.
And the noise, the noise,
It’s all white in my head.
And all I want,
Is my big cosy bed.
Emails bounce in, a chiming jamboree,
Pinging on my desk like an alarm,
With the knoll of a bell that is tolling for me.
And I’m grinning not bearing.
And the noise, the noise,
It’s all white in my head.
And all I want,
Is to go back to bed.
Meetings after meetings every day,
Agendas and actions that must be obeyed.
All to be done in time that’s waylaid.
And there’s madness not method.
And the noise, the noise,
It’s all white in my head.
And all I want,
Is my big cosy bed.
My work-life balance has flown out the door,
An angel with wings that have been charred,
From the milieu of tasks that are a chore,
And I’m working not living.
And the noise, the noise,
It’s all white in my head.
And all I want,
Is to stay in my bed.
2016
I wrote this one not long after I had changed jobs at work to become course leader for the Post 16 PGCE. I wrote this at the start of the job, in an academic year that I called the ‘Pandora’s Box’ year as it seemed that every time I looked into something, it was a bit like opening a Pandora’s box – every week it seemed, and the workload was tremendous. It felt like I could never get on top of things, as more and more stuff kept being thrown at me – hence the white noise. One of my friends, a senior colleague where I worked, loved it and said it was like I was in their head too. I was not alone! I entered it for a competition on the Forward Poetry website, and yes, you’ve guessed it, whilst I did not win the competition, I had this poem published in one of their collections. I’m proud of this as I really like this one, I love the imagery, and the reality of the situation which shouts from the page.
PUBLISHED in Mind Matters Part II by Forward Poetry 2017 (Ed. Sarah Washer) p54