Four Poems by Jim Murdoch

 

Oughtness

 

  

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking. – John Maynard Keynes 

  

Ought does not imply can. 

Ought does not entail can. 

Ought does not presuppose can. 

Ought does not implicate can. 

  

Ought involves rights— 

      the (or what’s), not a— 

and duty and integrity. 

It strongly suggests shouldness. 

  

Ought presents as optionalistic 

but it is also pressuristic, 

passive aggressive (oh, so) 

and possessive. 

  

Ought can be— 

      anything or nothing— 

even if (or when) you can’t 

(or won’t) do either.

 

 

Happyishness

  

Pleasure is not happiness 

even though 

happiness is pleasurable. 

  

And, apparently, happiness 

isn’t joy either 

but rather a subset of joy— 

  

according to Wikipedia, so 

you know 

that’s very likely 90% true— 

  

not quite elation but a tad 

better than 

amusement or delectation. 

  

One thing is true though, 

happiness runs, 

from, away, but never to. 

  

It’s its version of foreplay. 

You know, 

“Chase me! Chase me!”

 

 

 

Oldness

 

  

The days of our years are threescore years and ten – Psalm 90:10 

  

I have always been some kind of old. 

Growing up, strangers would enquire, 

“And how old are you?” and I’d fire back, 

I am not old. I’m three or five-and-a-half. 

My insistence on tagging on the fraction 

told a different story. 

  

Now, of course, I am old-old, proper old, 

easily sixth age, hobbling into seventh. 

Strangers should likely be asking, 

“And how worn are you?” to which I’d reply, 

“Worn but not out, not yet,” and 

we’d all have a good chuckle. 

  

I think age should be expressed as a percentage of 

the proverbial (psalmistic actually) threescore and ten, 

which would make me 90% done, 91 come January. 

What I’ve done (and failed to do) with said 90% 

will be the subject of my next poem.

 

 

Thingness 

  

  

Everyone has a thing. 

This is my thing. 

  

You’re a big part of my thing. 

I can’t do my thing without you. 

  

That's the thing about things, 

they're rarely about one thing 

  

and often rope in another thing or, 

sometimes, a string of things 

  

which draw in still more things, 

like somethings or all-or-nothings, 

  

but, if pressed, most can make do 

with pretty much any old thing. 

  

One thing always leads to another 

and in time everything turns to shit. 

  

Before that anything might happen 

and it might not. 

                           Then again in might. 

 

 

Jim Murdoch is a Scottish writer living in Cumbernauld. He's been writing for over fifty years and his list of rejections is voluminous but he keeps at it. He's written most things over the years--novels, stories, songs, even plays--but he thinks of himself primarily as a poet and is currently producing poems at an unpresented pace. There are worse things to be in your sixties.