The Boardroom

Men, wearing suits, practicing mindfulness..?

Maybe at a funeral

Not in the boardroom.

The Boardroom.

Full of dead wood and deader souls

Facemasks and undercover moles

Powersuits and fingerpuppets.

Sharks circling dogs with their backs to each other. Snarling

These Suits — the straitjackets of the west.

Desolation to desecration

Death beds crawling with regret, humiliation.

Are you done?

There’s another boardroom

Where your suits are for practicing this thing, mindfulness.

The fins are sharkless

You can take your leash off whenever you like.

No dogs here

Well, most of the time.

Mindfulness is a must to find it. Even if it’s through the back door.

These suits — mystical portals of the coast.

Sanctuary to sanctuary

And when your time’s up. Go humble, content.

Do you know both of these?

Do you tessellate between tension and expansion?

But, alas

Tension is winning

It’s bandaids and broken hearts

Some bite marks and fin chops never heal.

Each day, finding yourself further and further…

Away from the waves.

Note to the readers:

A few of my dear musical brothers are with me whenever I’m out surfing. One of them is Billy Otto and his song ‘Waves’ inspired this piece.

Waves means many things to me and like waves, changes from day to day.

The other arvo when I was surfing, the meaning morphed again as I remembered a business mentoring day I attended a few years ago.

Full of men and women in powersuits with seemingly great intentions.

I was sat in my thongs, shorts and party shirt.

I felt out of place, not the first time, so it was cool.

The MC, who seemed to be a pretty nice fella, was fully clad in a suit and teaching us mindfulness.

All I could think about was how tight his tie looked around his throat.

And the vision came back to me mid-surf.

By the way,

I’m well aware that poetry doesn’t need an explanation. I just really wanted to share brother Billy’s song and also that in my experience, and I’m sure many others, songs change shape and meaning for us over and over again.

A portal for understanding ourselves, each other, and all of the magical things around us. Everything breathes.

Plus you should check out his music ;)

Magic.