Different Strokes

Some words cannot be found

Without first being

Or becoming lost

The ground is dry, hard

Parched, thin grass

There are memories here

Yet the barren earth

Does not know how to call for them

There are couples, walking arm in arm

Matching jumpers, matching rucksacks

There are families

Of all ethnicities, of none

Who seem to share high levels of boredom

This is not my place anymore

I have lost my feeling of belonging

On the balcony of the cafe I drink a glass

Of Fontimans, Botanically Brewed

Mandarin and Seville Orange Jigger

I am there among young Japanese folk

And a woman, in a Sgt Peppers velvet jacket

The family of four, at the next table

Talk in pronounced English of last seasons Italian trip

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Listen

I see today’s lost soul

Just as I was that lost soul

Some time before them

I see the scattered feathers

Just as the fox attack

Has left them

I see the water of the lake

Just as that other water

Which my sorrowful soul gazed into

I see grandparents, parents, children

Just as we might have been

But not as we are

I see the light in the deer shelter roof

Just as it was

The last time, and the times previous

I see (feel) that the silence is not here today

Just as I didn’t actually know it was

All of those times in the past

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Embedded

The ice-cream cabin as was

Is now a car park pay-station

Yet, at just on eleven

The cafe is crowded

The terrace is full

So someone, somewhere

Knows something about business

Though the wet chairs

From overnight rain

Catch a few punters out

Did we spend long here

Did we go to the water

I remember a photoshop picture I made

Of your face

Among a tree with a Gormley statue

The sort of thing

Which a child might have been taught

Although for me

The motivation was somewhat different

It was about hanging on

It was about not letting go

It is about hanging on

It is about not letting go

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Overheads

I sit on Alfred’s, the old head gardener’s seat

I wonder what he might have made

Of the mock tree

With the mock apple baubles

I think of your boots

With silver on the heels

I think that even if all that glitters

Is not gold, it is still evocative

One couldn’t quite call it the start of the day

Yet the artificial tree

Between the beech and the horse chestnut

Is what the children shout about

What did you make of the sculpture park

I’m sure I told you about my coming here

After my mother had died

After bombs were dropped on Yugoslavia

I hear the distant aeroplane

I am taken back, to you collecting me

From your airport; you wanting to show off

Your island, just as I wanted to show you mine

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At Table

A dullness to the morning

Heavy in my thirteen-and-a-half stone

Writing in my hotel bedroom

Lost from my place called home

I decide to take cooked breakfast

To try to get back in the zone

It only costs five pounds extra

I have a window of my own

The railway line is fenced off

The stairwell filled with chrome

The silver birch leaves are limp

The television is the usual drone

The waitress is simply joyful

With the croissants, with the scone

The tradesman is way less happy

Apologising, on his mobile phone

These words are out of context

Should they make it to the tome

Would they be better off discarded

Or cut right back, made bare to the bone

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Perspectives

Why is there no photograph

Of me with you

How sure of myself

Would I have had to have been

To ask a friend to snap us

With my arm around your shoulder

I don’t know where

You bought your outfit

Neither have I any understanding

Of how ridiculous you thought I looked

Or in what way you responded

To my father of the bride speech

You left me with my brothers

Went upstairs to our family bedroom

The ignominious hours were almost over

Though the everlasting damage was done

We were polite at breakfast, especially

With the remaining guests at table

A couple of days later

Back home in Devon

I wrote my own record

Of how I thought the day had gone

I didn’t capture any of these feelings

But yes, I do have a copy, somewhere

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Standing

Only now do I see

That it was my turn

Oh how I took it

To play the blood

Is thicker than water card

Did you realise

From that day forwards

How it would always be for you

No longer numero uno, but now

A bit part in a larger family situation

Was that then the final straw

To our many many partings

Was the next unexpected leaving

Too much for you to look forwards to

Did you see all of my potential failings

Without a purpose

Would I have no anchor

Without clear objectives

Would I drift without aim

Could you in that case no longer hold onto me

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Big Day

I do remember the arguments

My teenage son

Wanting to wear inappropriate shoes

To my daughter’s wedding

Something about

The immovable object

And the unstoppable force

Comes to mind

I think you thought me ridiculous

Childlike even

I think you thought me useless

Entirely lacking in negotiation skills

I don’t know that you know

How much you hurt me

How important it was for me

For the big day to go smoothly

Did I ever tell you

How I was watched throughout that day

In an attempt to keep me sober

With no mind to my anger or my disappointment

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Resounding

I have a view

Through net curtain windows

A blue sky with thin white clouds

Beneath which sits

A whole forest of trees

Not in view

But directly below

My third floor

Is a single track railway line

Going to, and coming from

Back in time I also wrote of what I could

Not have seen, from my hotel bedroom window

Firstly the promenade, in Lyme Regis

Then that encroaching black black sky

Which eventually stole away my horizon

The coming from, and the going to

They all happened too too often

Even now you might see

That I am simultaneously struck

By the echoes, of arrivals and departures

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Top Of That Hill

Giuseppe Penone’s

Alberto Folgorato

(Lightning struck tree)

Could be the very metaphor

Amplified by the dark clouds of Yorkshire

Highlighted by the sky's silver linings

The split trunk

Says much about divergence

The gold-leaf offshoot

Itself splits in two

Their fine points

Reaching ever upward

Yet it is the dark bark

A combination of browns, silver-greys

With slivers of gold

Which looks strongest, which reaches highest

What we leave behind

May grow ever brighter

But in no way, no way whatsoever

Did it stunt our growth

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Oh Henry

I did not expect to find such peace

Or for your presence to be so strong

Sometimes, I now know

That you just have to wait

Of course sunshine

And blue skies always helps

How long was the creation of this work

How long will take its deconstruction

Such a perfect setting

What better use for a Chapel

Of course sunshine

With blue skies, always helps

I take a second photograph

To remind me of the absence

I notice not only are mother and child missing

But also the Mother and Child is missing too

Of course sunshine

With blue skies, always helps

I could not rightly expect silence

In the busy, mid-summer coffee shop

Anyway why would I want that, for surely

Joyful laughter are what I wish to be reminded of

Of course sunshine

With blue skies, always helps

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Pond

I have found a quiet place

I have taken a photograph

Of your absence

Yesterday I found photographs

Days 2 to 3 on the canal boat

You looked swell, smiling

The moorhen

Appears to walk on water

As it skips across the lotus leaves

That you were happy

Is what struck me; somehow

We had touched the miracle of life

Now the moorhen’s sibling

Leads her away from the water

To the calm of the terra-firma

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Residual

That love of no longer love

That love of pure escapism

The schism of disappearance

The insincere smitten life of sense

Intensity rises, intensity calls

Opportunity prises, immense in the falls

Soul and spirit: a deep and wilful critic

The cyclic nature of abandonment calls

Succession, procession, obsession

Fresh from the morning nap

Correction, inflection, dictation

Until the next time of passion

The fashion is as the fashion is

No longer is the fashion as the fashion was

Was that, what we did not talk about

That one day we too would grow old

Yet the cold caught hold before our time

Your bold move brought the curtain down

The certainty of your management

Sent out shock waves, which never settled

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Inside

When I close this page

May the conversations continue

Between what maybe never was

And what maybe was never meant to be

Might that they should explore

How close, or how far

Their emotions floated, drifted

In search of a stable mooring

That they could open the faces

Of the pebbles, the stones, the oceans

Such that they could hear the music

Of a love line leaning, all pervading

Might that they ask one another

Also ask of themselves

Was there any further that we could have gone

Was there any nearer which we could have been

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