There is one thing certain about my poetry; it is not a reliable guide to either time or place; the poems often spring from memories; deep, or shallow memories.
Yes, I may remember a scent, or a dust mote, but to tell you where, or to tell you when, well then things get a bit sketchy.
My desire for ambiguity steps to the fore; the need to cover one’s tracks, the absolute desire to prevent anything literal being taken from, or read into, my words of escape.
Will it always be thus? It may always be thus, except in those moments of overwhelming weakness, or in those moments of seriously, blindingly mindful awareness.
In 2004 I was working on site in Taunton, also at the head office in Wolverhampton; frequently I had to visit sites on the Dorset coast, and contribute to team building in Yorkshire and Warrington, but I was able to work Fridays in Devon, from our home.
Since 2000 I had spent more nights away from home than I had spent at home; I had become used to the itinerant life; what should my partner do when I was away from home; surely she deserved a life.
I don’t recall that we spoke too much, not like in our formative years, when my partner often told me that I was the only person who she could talk to on the telephone without clock watching.
What is it that causes the words to dry up, what prevents the humour filled ripostes, what takes away the joy of meaningful, and meaningless conversations.
Is it too much to ask a couple to be continuously switching their lives on and off; is continuity the real bedrock of companionship, even, dare I say it of love.
The place I used to stay in Somerset is now an Air B&B establishment, though its description is exactly as I remember it, with the same strict rules for breakfast.
I would have liked to have lived in that house, it was designed and built by an architect who lived there; he seemed to have put all of the right things in all of the right places.
It was more than a home from home, it was a retreat, a place for contemplation, for solace; yet it was an indulgence, perhaps I should have gone home more often than I did, for after all home was only two hours drive away.
When I first came back to the UK from Jersey I stayed in lodgings in Devon, right beside the train line; every night I would go to telephone my partner from the telephone box on the railway bridge.
Then I would return to my bedroom, lay on the bed, listen to the trains going up country, or coming down from London, on their way to Plymouth and beyond.
In the Mendips and on the Somerset Levels I did the same thing, although now I could hear from further away, for there was less urban sprawl to dull the sounds of the trains.
I hope not to overload you with old poetry, but I do so so want to give you a feel for how I felt about this B&B (and maybe about other things too) with my poem Morning
