I sit still, and look out of the window
I see the settled stillness of nature
Flowers, and bushes, and trees, and sky
I see layers, and layers
Layers of variegated colours
Yellows, and oranges, and reds, and crimsons
Greys, and greens, and blues, and golds
I see all of this
As I watch a television arts programme
About Still Life
And I remember my own book
Branch Lines To The Silent
I recall its passage
To it becoming a physical object
I see the settled stillness of nature
And I remember a night of erotic passion
With the vicars daughter
I am reading Doctor Zhivago
I could be the renegade apprentice
I could be the striking railroad worker
I was in those episodes
I did those kinds of things
I lived that life, a little bit out of control
It was the wildness
The wildness before the stillness
I gently unbuttoned
Her see-through blouse, caressed
Her delightful, if somewhat diminutive, breasts
She showed me
How to lubricate a Durex gossamer
We made love
Leaning against, and looking into
Into the open castle window
We made love again, down in the town
Behind the gasometer
In earshot of the dancehall
The flowers, the bushes, the trees
And the sky, all still
I saw layers, and layers
Layers of variegated colours
Purples, and pinks, and rouges, and violets
Whites, and silvers, and rubies, and vermilions
