How I came to be

And so it comes to this

The end of a career in which

My subject matter has moved on

From uninterruptible power supplies

Through software generations

Variations of themes that all amount to

A game

Of giving new names

To the same old thing

Promising revolutionary epoch making products

Artificial intelligence and such

So much promised four decades ago

And only just beginning to show

Some useful uses

Not to mention abuses

By some

Moving on

First to retail electronics

Some new mnemonics to learn

Without spurning

The urge to break news

Give a wide variety of views

And feature the best reviews

Of otherwise mundane products

A few forays into the popular caper

Consumer magazines

Even the odd national newspaper

With business appraisals

Trying not to be mere navel gazing

Amazing the world with GPS

Or cell phone technology

And the occasional article about careers

Soon the theme was not e-prestidigitation but

Popular media and communications

And this newfangled internet thingy

World Wide Web and the possibility

Of using the medium to promote and to sell

An absurd proposition

To some at the time but

As I said then

Time will tell

And it did

As for five years I laboured

To create a business

That knew the potential

Of the online medium

But enough of the boom and the bust and the boom

No gloom from me

it was again

Time to move on

Not to think and plan just do what I can

Small business support

But still hitting the keys

To please a few clients who lived in awe

Of the author

The writer

Gifted in the art of putting across

A message

Or unravelling ravelled complications

To achieve a level of elucidation

That brought system security

Or network penetration testing

Into understanding by those

Investing in the future of

Their now connected world

Next move

Away from media it seemed

To the world of finance

Money and international dealings

But still time to hit the keys

Before learning to use another kind of key

A radical change for me

When I traded in my role directorial

For something infinitely more custodial

Penitentiary profession

A session inside

Behind bars

Far from the world I knew

But hopefully bringing a different view

To the carceral environment

A heaven sent opportunity for me

To see what difference I could make

In that world of very much give

And not a lot of take

I continued to write

Now the professional press

Prison Journal

Book reviews

Interviews

My interest also drifted

Back to the legal domain

Unravelling the word of the law

Not something I would have foreseen before

But there it is

Divorce

Business

Private client matters

Or so they said

It kept me well read

From the statute book

And court reports

Again clarification

Sought

And then

On reflection

A little education would seem worth a try

A master's degree?

Why not?

And so through legal meaning

Reading law books

Researching cases statutes

On human rights

International law

A brief foray into forensic psychology

Then to infinity and beyond

Breaking new ground

With out of this world

Consideration

Of space legislation

Treaties and accords

It ended with a dissertation

On property rights

Up above

The Kármán Line

By then my life of crime

Gave way to the back office

Security and custodial policy

Took most of my time

But still the key bashing continued

Mostly on correspondence

Briefing and case work

Ministerial messages

And advice to colleagues

About how to keep safe and secure

Their custodial world

Next a final move to

End my days of public service

Reverting to private practice

Providing security

To entertainers

Film makers, hotels, party goers

Stars of stage and screen

And certain sporting events

A bit of a racquet but

Always a ball

A call that I find hard to resist

But in these years past I have also

Turned my hand and

My nine little literary soldiers

To creating words that have less definite meaning

Less presentation

Of fact

And more

Creation of Fiction

More prosaic

And perhaps poetic

Bardic pursuits

At the root of an ambition

To follow the myth and legend tradition

And that of the writer of verse

So it comes to this

At the end

A writer of broad experience

In non-fiction

Takes on the condition

Of story teller

Be it made up stuff

The human condition

Or art

Ending the

Beginning and

Beginning

The end