Doug Phillips

On reading this my wife said

It's too far in the past

But that where the poem took me

So for now it'll just have to last

On September 27th 1951

At ten to two in the morning

Which is the time on a lot of stopped clocks

That or ten past ten, in catalogues and shops

I was born at an early age

Four months too late

For my parent’s marriage

Probably the talk of the village

This was in an Essex location

I still have the accent despite

Very many attempts at correction

And threats of lessons in elocution

One had to talk like the Queen

In case she came for tea suddenly

Always ready with posh manners

And the posh accent it seems

I could do voice overs for Geico Gecko

Look him up on you tube and give him a go

in the States if I order a ‘merlot’

I get often get a Miller, Lite don’t you know

I had many jobs as a teenager

I escaped being a green grocer

Instead I became an engineer

In ship Dynamic Positioning control systems for 44 years

I designed, built, tested them

That was for 23 years and then

For the other 21 a consultant engineer

A poacher who turned game keeper

At grammar from A steam I never had to depart

As I was top five in math, physics and art

In English I should have been in stream C

The teachers just didn’t do it for me

At sixteen my headmaster wrote me off

But my mother didn’t let him off

Eur Eng, C Eng, MIEE, MIMarE ,B Sc, OND

For most of these, she sent him a copy

My parents liked best, from my peers in accord

My 2010 Distinguished Achievement Award

From the Dynamic Positioning Committee

Of the Marine Technology Society

My Mother gave me

Math and thinking logically

My Father gave me

An engineer’s practicality

But both gave me curiosity

It was the supplement in the Sunday Times

That awoke more of my mind

That and late nights with my friends

I’ve read lots of classic fiction

But it’s nonfiction that’s my passion

It's social comment comedy

That I like to see

So the engineer in me

Using bullet point poetry

Gets the thoughts out free

In the new form,, ‘poemedy’

Into a unusual ‘style’

Best described as ‘pithy’

One might call it ‘Terse’

Which gives me nice end rhyme – ‘Terse Verse’