‘Determined’ came out of the supermarket,
Strode as manfully as a woman can do
Towards the red car parked next to mine
Sporting a bright red ‘puffa’ jacket
And matching ultra-shiny Doc Martens
With yuk-yellow laces.
I wondered what it all meant;
What she wanted us to read into her attire.
‘Confused’ took over as she ground to a halt
And spun round desperately trying to remember
Where the hell she’d parked the car.
The woman who was not as glamorous
As the BMW 4 wheel-drive she drove
[Though clearly she thought she was]
Ranting and raving like a spoiled child
At her partner or passenger
Because she just had to blame someone else
For her having left the keys on the seat
And allowing the vehicle
[Which was clearly far too clever for her own good]
To auto-lock itself against all intruders:
Her included.
If cars can smile, this one was now wearing
A smug grin from headlight to halogen headlight
And flashing its gold-topped radiator-teeth.
She’d be better off in a Twingo or Clio,
Her partner in anything heading anyway she wasn’t.
The blue overall men:
One who took a large trolley to buy
Just two six-packs of beer and some low fat crisps
And loaded them carefully into the back of his Safrane
With the back seats down –
A drop of stuff in an ocean of space.
The other with today’s paper
Plus three tubs of Ben and Jerry’s –
Chunky-Monkey I think
[Don’t ask me how I know …
I don’t want my diet to find me out].
They guy who swung into a parking space
At twenty degrees off the parallel,
Then looked at how effectively
He had blocked his neighbour’s driver’s side door
Before heading into the store
Satisfied that he had engineered some little
Discomfort into someone’s life.
The neighbour arrived, seventeen and stick-thin,
Decided she was not going to be beaten
And squeezed and slid her slightness into the seat
Cussing and cursing at the cause.
I should have got out and told him
She’d put one over on him.
Does life have a meaning?
Is it a singular thing we’re all meant to seek:
The joy being in the journey and not the destination?
If some find it and others don’t,
Is that they way it should work?
And what does it mean for the rest of us: The Meaningless?
What if the answer really is 42:
The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything
As Douglas Adams put it in the Hitchhikers’ Guide?
Maybe there is no meaning.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
Maybe the meaning lies in having no preordained meaning
So Mankind can make what meaning it may.
Maybe Einstein’s principle of Relativity
Goes beyond perspective on mere space/time
From the particular point of presence:
Maybe my viewing brings meaning into being?
Maybe I am the meaning.
Do you know what I mean?
In fact,
Do I know what I mean?
The oldies with their sewing-machine-engined sort-of car
Loading up some indescribably ugly garden gnome
And finding something to bicker about in so doing.
If there were reason or meaning behind that
I wasn’t about to look for it.
You went in for scissors –
Came out with knickers.
