Acquiring useful things has become more important

in his later years of reflection and bigger pictures

as he unpacks the black and yellow hard plastic case

that conveys and conceals a Combi drill

pulls it out fits the battery into the hand grip

poses with it briefly pressing the trigger

a short whirr of the bit making him believe

he’s in a remake of Bladerunner

that he could some damage with this power tool

whilst considering how many of the current crop

of Members of Parliament could do with

an injection of honesty good manners and humanity

stored deep in an unremarkable darkness in his house

is a tool box that contains some of his collection of arms

those knives bayonets clubs and handguns

he keeps out of sight of the few visitors he receives

but easy enough to access should civil war break out

in the supermarkets at ATMs in hospitals and schools

on slip roads country lanes and in car parks

when the whole country gets acquainted

with how weaponized it is

and how much of it has an urgent need

to separate from the misplaced exceptionalism

of London and the south east of England

taking back control as they would have it

betrayal is a word bandied about a lot

in the hot air of the moment

but he feels badly let down

by much of information technology

suffering the buffering of streaming services

when he has at last sat down to watch something

he was looking forward to after a day of what he does

nothing works anymore there's so much junk around

the promise of home entertainment winds hims up

and he wishes he was back in the 17th or even the 7th century

he wrestles too with packaging

amazed and exasperated at how robust it is

when he tries to open it with implements

perhaps the manufacturers are collectively possessed

of a black humour and conspire to make it difficult

for their customers to break into their products

he realises he may be paranoid but could also be right

he's feeling a little uncomfortable even guilty

about his sincere interest in serial killing cases

because he's now learned that he should have paid

more attention to the mostly female victims

but he can't always remember their names

which kind of proves a point he is slow to acknowledge

he prefers his poets dead in the main

it's nothing personal nothing he wishes for anyone

that's how he's interacted generally for decades

the finite information the finite nostalgia

nothing to fear any more a line drawn

he gardens industriously and ironically

now that the UN has given the soil sixty years

he could cry letting his tears water his parcel of land

at least he'll be long in the ground by then

but he feels for the kids the birds the animals the fish

the insects the trees the flowers the forests the savannah

the oxygen the wind the moon the sun the stars

the sea the streams the lakes the rivers

the lovers and the possibilities

he holds his breath when neighbours mispronounce

his name and those of his parents and his house

he tries to smother a snort of contempt

for these are good folk they’re just like him

though he can understand when others complain

about thousands of strangers settling in their home areas

nothing is as it used to be

today his web photo archive provider sent him an image

to remind him of this date one year ago

a photo of an area of dampness on a ceiling

the reminiscing of an algorithm there's no contest

even if the robots will take over as it appears they will

he chuckles and recalls the word clusterfuck

that crops up in his newspaper rather often these days

tonight he waits for a meteorite shower to arrive

an honour though he's a little impatient

fretting that he's looking at the wrong patch of sky

he need not worry for this has been done before

and is still wonderful