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Stalwart providers of liquid sustenance Impassive servants of neutral countenance Corporate slaves dispensing relief For conditioned slaves of filtered air. Side-by-side, the partners in time Look increasingly soiled; blind usage - Until one day the splash-protecting shutter Spluttered and ground and stuck half-way. A torrent of beeps screamed "service me! My brother still serves quite seamlessly. One small adjustment, I can please you again Avoiding gruff rudeness and tussling men." In grey uniforms, our routine is now upset One more procedure to deal with the stuckness. But then one day, with seamless routine As if stuckness was all the shutter had been... Acceptance, how could we deal with smooth flowing Shutters, little seeds of ideas we're sowing: That if stuck shutters can give character to the day May stuck shutters be the universal way? - Simon Huggins, 18th December 2001

That a cat could provide a stabilising constancy for a family where flux is part of normality. Ahead, always in his simple needs: One cat, once beautiful grey, now dead. Never had we envisaged this wise feline: Patriarch to young, some of whom were cats, Never, in sixteen years of hunting time; Never believed he could fall like that. Cats before have gone this way, But never our Mog - he was too wise, To sleep at night and through the day, Not catch a car's unwise surprise. One day to sleep the sleep that pulls One down and through this mortal veil, To sigh once more, exhaled to full And flicker a goodbye tip of the tail. But somehow I felt your time was near, I think you sensed it too; Perhaps you knew, thus allaying fear of death; fate beckoning you. To walk the path that seals your life of loving deeds, and influence. No more vexations; no feline strife - The car: a tool for confluence. We say farewell, your path is yours: The bonds of love in life unbound. To prowl on world-enfolding paws May your eternal mouse be found. - Simon Huggins, 14th December 2001 Author’s Note - Mog, our family pet of sixteen years, died on 11th December when a car ran over him. This is a short tribute, insufficient, but at least some sort of memorial.

Anonymity gives some exclusivity; I make you without name, what are you now? I remove the link that gives power over you with a Snap, and I've removed a personal dream. Individuality breeds resent; Your achievements are yours, not your name's. I break that chain between you and your name, and thus the means to feel achievement. Such power I'd hold if I titled you: Sir, your name is mine to wield, I'm proud. Yet this disconnects and flattens you out. So mutual Power is a risk of faith - a humble trust over you. Simon Huggins, 1st December 2001

One man can find the grace of caring in his hands; He doesn't need a reason for being so. Are his motivations genuine or planned? Or serving ingenuity to go? One man can find aristocracy in his veins; His duty to give care for loyal subjects. A gentleman's divine is washed right down with wine Weighed down with modern "cannot love" bricks. Your destiny must be to build yourself right up. Your love must help to show you how. You, you, you, you no time for pleasantries now; In the passage of shove and rush, we're all proles now. Simon Huggins, 1st December 2001

Shadow-play frozen, intricate shapes - Branches barren, no fallen leaves. Radial glow through radial spikes; Passing sprays of illumined night. I pass no corners, the trees seem flat - Flickering hedges emphasise that. The Sumnal lazy car-train passed the icy rush to sheltered times. Shadows flicker a powdery glare - My eyelids flicker to join them there. But could I join the flattening trees, Their radial glow may comfort me. Movement, light, shadows, still. Still in motion, catch my will. Passing, fallen, flattened, bare. I, a tree; a mutual stare. Simon Huggins, 15th November 2001 Author’s note: The word Sumnal is not in the English Dictionary, but I have used it in a past poem, and my thoughts are that it expresses the feeling behind summery days much better then the word summery (which sounds rather glib and lightweight). It is derived in the same way as Autumnal stems from Autumn.

Street-light umber: Embers of the day Pass and sputter Tarmac-orange way. Distant crackle-spitting Heartbeat childhood sway Hotdogs, sparklers flitting... Distant speckled play. Make me humble; Thank the ebbing day Thoughts to utter: Fireworks guide my way. Simon Huggins, 5th November 2001

Amoeboid green showing translucently the seeds inbetween but shrivelled uselessly. Sucked to the glass pigment is carelessly discarded too fast fading out gradually. Unmovingly organic dualistic disarmingly gelatinous Titanic placed rather charmingly. Art thrown like dice bun gutted gracelessly discovering sliced gherkin thanklessly. Simon Huggins, 26th October 2001

I eat flesh from the bones of an orange Who has this please to declare? I drink blood and urine, from the pure and bubbling stream - There is nothing, nothing to repair. I make two people sit and paw, claw together Motioning circles of nature's subtle rhymes. Hopelessly, incessantly, and moving them on... They're nothing, nothing in time. I see you're spying on my own methodology You are not suitably subtle, but that is fine - I shall balance you out in time, be afraid. But nothing, nothing is sublime. I sear the bubbles of ice from the glaciers You cannot perceive or conceive my name. I am your sustenance, you are my excrement - And so nothing, nothing is the same. - Simon Huggins, 22nd October 2001

Reveal that which was before unseen - You have to ask where your mind has been - You always hated this town, and lo! You hate it despite its being green. Staring idle, awaiting in trust Blankly through the passing cars' fuss and bother, if one shining raindrop shows against the backdrop of the fifty-three bus. The grey clouds add real mood to the day; Take those worrisome thoughts away with expansive awe that immutably glows away the troubles that mindfully play. One screaming child tears at one's soul - Trapped, one hapless murderous hole that strikes the ego one ruthless blow: One should never predefine one's role. We will be shaken; a trembling squeeze - Ignore from the souls the meaningless please, but accept that old clothes must finally be thrown - Defeated, they drift in your eddying breeze. With Autumn reborn before leaves will turn, we get in quick so we don't have to learn of cold and decay, or life and home - Or grey revelation, and our worries infirm. Simon Huggins, 24th September 2001

The lone man looked up to the skies; Hand held like a visor, protecting from glare, the clouds deflecting few rays from the stare, besides: A dull sun still burns the eyes. He turns to look away, tries to see, but the ghost still lingers to obscure his shaking fingers: To his hurt, the memory replies - A dull sun still burns these eyes. Rays still trace the swollen skies - From the Earth, clouds protecting; Mute beauty, his eyes defecting to the sun, to avoid, besides: A dull sun still turns these eyes. The clouds close in, he tries to re-feel the memory, it lingers but even flexing angry fingers cannot evoke the gods' replies - A dull sun turned these eyes. He cannot push her aside - Beauty in the inherent residual dulling of each individual. To nature, he cannot be a bride - Her dull sun, turned down eyes. Simon Huggins, 14th September 2001