Well you undertook some meaningful work after all. This poem chunters along 
very nicely and the style suits the subject. Very lucid. I'd simplify: 
"complex yet simple abstract nouns into verbs -"

e.g. ... those abstract nouns to verbs
 like..

Also some worry about the sequencing right at the end of the poem.The 
reader's just got "you've drunk" and then  they're back to sipping. Again 
this could be simplified to good effect.


e.g. Each cup of coffee
after spooning in the granules
sipped still warm in afternoons
before what happens next.


Colin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 5:51 PM
Subject: New Sub: Measuring Up


H'm, should have been working hard after work... instead:
A first draft for any comments:

Measuring Up

You drape socks on the radiator,
each one pulled straight, in pairs.
No-one said you would choose this life:
things happened, things didn't. Sometimes
the choices were yours, sometimes not.
The hours asleep, the longer hours awake
at home, at work, the daydreams
when travelling, the meals, the customs
you observed and then followed, clothes
you assumed would say something
and the hairstyles, shoes, which quietened
with age. How your accent changed
and how you tried to turn, by faith,
complex yet simple abstract nouns into verbs -
words like hope and love. Each cup of coffee
you've drunk after spooning in the granules
sipped while still warm in afternoons
before what happens next.

Bob Cooper

(who, you might want to know, has read - and borrowed or stolen - something
TS Eliot wrote)