Meet Chris Baxter: Finance Professional, Poet, and YBH Writing Judge

Chris is a 30-year finance and investment professional who enjoys writing as a creative distraction. We are grateful to have him serve as one of the judges for our writing contest. Check out his poems below!

Photo provided – from nearly 40 years ago (when I was an adult child) 

Book by Chris A. Baxter: COVID-21 found here.

Poems by Chris Baxter:

Adult Child

When time has passed and time has come
When this life is said and done
What will I reflect upon
When I meet Him, who made someone?

Someone who’s trod upon this earth
Who’s known its highs and lows since birth
Someone who felt and looked like me
The one I was in infancy.

For surely if what follows life
Is unending; joy or strife
Then whatever goes before this, should
Be merely seen as …Childhood.

And childhood is time to play
Rejoicing in the very day
Unfolding as He deemed it must

With childlike charm from dawn to dusk.
 
Why even in my mortal time

I’ve seen the adult best defined
By what he felt and what he saw
Before he started wanting more.
Wanting to work and to compete

To stand up high on adult feet
To show himself and fellow man
He had achieved all that one can.
 
Do I decry this? …Not at all

Why I myself have, proud and tall,

Stood up and hoped they’ll look at me
Admiring what I came to be.

—-

Though as I’ve worked and as I’ve climbed
I’ve wondered this, from time to time

When did the child from me pass?
When last I walked barefoot in grass?
 
When last I watched a breaking wave
And wondered at the shape it made

Or paused to feel the freshening wind
Upon my face …a childhood friend.

When I last gazed at sea from shore
And felt I wanted nothing more.

—-

…For more’s the problem, more’s the need
More is the source of human greed.
 
If I have more and you have less
Does that not prove that I’m the best?

And after more, comes even more
Come on! You know we’re keeping score.

—-

…Until one day the Good Lord says
Enough! For you of earthly bread

When Act 1 ends, the curtain falls
Then God, I pray, You change the rules.  

Keep heaven for the Adult Child
Who saw the world as cause to smile.
Adult in judgment, kind and wise

Yet keen to learn …eyes open wide.

Into this next world from the last
I would just souls and dreams have pass

 …While men with wealth who won’t let go
Belong together …Down below.
 
Be-long together …Down below.

---

Facebook

Face-book

Look! Look! Look!

See what I did

See what I ate

See where I went

See:   …Ain’t I great!

See every single breath I took

See, it’s My Face

Cos it’s My Book.

Facebook, Ace-book, the best Place-book

In the world

For all to see

The wonderment of:

Me, Me, Me…!

—–

Ah, I’ve just noticed, …realised

That you too

Photo-synthesised

Your life

Into a thousand snaps

And stuck them all on Facebook chats

…Must I wade through all this stuff?

Your cat …your dog …You – …in the buff?

Your kitchen (new), your hotel loo?

Your Facebook’s only:

…You, You, You…!

—–

Oh, I get it – that’s the deal

I should pretend to really feel

Some interest in your endless posts

(…Though aren’t they mainly shameless boasts?)

Or else you gonna tell me this:

My life’s a waste of your bandwidth

Your megabytes no longer free

To download more of:

Me, Me, Me…!

So be sure I’ll keep things friendly

Click all your crap

Please – Don’t un-friend me!

I need five hundred likes a day

…To keep my loneliness at bay.

…I need to know my fake-posed scenes

Are never not on someone’s screen

My life of constant cool pretended

My selfie stick always extended. 

See modesty and truth are dying

Among the online’s ‘social-lying’

Exposure’s what it’s all about

If not on show you’re down, …you’re out.

—-

You know, I once had some real mates

Sometimes they’d call; sometimes we’d date

And when we talked, we’d listen too

…Back then it wasn’t strange to do

Moreover, I was always sure

These friendships would through life endure

Good times and bad, the ups and downs

These folk, when needed, would be found

But now, of course, we bring our phones

To sit in groups of mindless clones

Non-stop playing with these toys

Convinced they bring us greater joy

Than offering our consciousness

To those few present

 (…us, us, us…?)

The people in the room – I mean

Living …breathing,

Humans

…Being.

—-

Face it Facebook’s a Disgrace Book

Daft Book, Farce-Book, what an Arse-Book

A massive online garbage tip

Which stores the world’s Narcissic s**t,

And while we lose our time on this

Something precious goes amiss

An unintended sacrifice:

The greater gift of  

…Living Life.