Make the man

Striped deckchairs
Chiffon dress
Heads in books
A softer breeze

Beds with plumped up pillows
Rose gardens
Weeping willows
Cups of tea

Quintessential:
Fits as if a three-piece suit
Or ducks plaster cast threefold
In flight across the fire place wall

So what would you take with you
Other than paper, a pen and the sanity
To fetch back from your mind
That which you have already known

That which you know makes
The difference
Between the here and there
Between the then and now

So what
Would you take with you
To make the man:

Checked frocks
Embroidered smocks
Garlands round the maypole

Hand pulled ales
Hills and vales
Strangers resounding

At the clarion call
By the tall trees now in slumber
Somewhere East of Clumber

Deferential
Sticks unpicked
Past glories
Lost & stumbled

The shoddy
Without the shimmer
With thread and pin
Therein to sing

That sometime
The fabric’s time
Not with medals
But with honour
The fabrics time arrives


The pamphlet Rainbows on my Spectacles is available at http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/rainbows-on-my-spectacles/id486905289?mt=11