Once I was of an age

When everything was black or white

When everything and everyone had possibilities

A time when I had not allowed myself

To be screwed or nailed down

By the deception that which all we do

Is set up to make a gain

Where all the fire in my eyes

In my belly never went out

But just changed direction

Where the focus was to grab

To have and to hold

To accumulate and achieve

And black and white became beige

In a cheap chipboard covered world

Pushing, shoving

Free thinking out of the window

Down the street and round the corner

Out of sight

Out of reach

And all the world was beige

 

It was a place where the stifling, coughing

Choking retching heat

Never quite became too much

Because the colour

Was always beige

And the clock beat on

And I was trained and blinkered

Answering the programme

To want and to crave

All that wasn’t mine

All that wasn’t me

Because all the world was beige

 

How long would it take?

How many times would I trip and fall?

Before

I realised that the black or the white was not beige

But many colours in between

And all the possibilities would return

Where intensity

Was replaced with exciting inconsistency

And the smooth and the shine

Of the chrome and the glass

Could not outstrip

All that was me

All that was mine

Because the deposit that had been made

All those years ago

Had not yet been spent

And none of it was beige

Nor black or white

Just a stunning uncertain shade of grey