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.
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.
