The long and the short of a part of my life Volume 1 Page 25

A year goes by

The sea was 

Millers visionary blue

The sky of a similar

But slightly lighter hue

Through our apartment window

The beach

The cliffs

The town

The view

I did love you

But it wasn't enough

Tired

But anxious to write

Each visit is important

Tired

But words push out

A take-over manoeuvre

Tired

But eyes close; a left field response

Known as the somnambulists defence

Tired

But happy to accept

Enough is enough

Anecdotes

At the very next table

And also behind me

The camouflage boys

Talk of deserts and landing beaches

They describe tanks

Caught in cross-fire operations

Passports to and from the war zone

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The long and the short of a part of my life Volume 1 Page 24

Beneath my bedroom window

Incognito, or leastways in the shadows

Before the call of cat & fox pervades

Incomprehensible

To be apart

On these fair fine evenings

Time to withdraw to my sleep

Set the soft words to one side

Call of time misses the verandah

Miranda whispers of Savannah

George holds her hand, say so

We may explore the Andes

We might countenance a cruise

The northern lights could attract us

But listen

George holds her hand, say so

Sculptures in the Arizona desert

Moon views from the planet Zorg

The Himalayas should draw us close

But listen

George holds her hand, say so

Call of time passes by the verandah

Miranda, beauty by any other name

George hold her hand

As I held yours

But listen, say so

Past Bodmin Parkway station

Hair stands on end

It is where I met you and your children

Sunshine in June

Two days before

Quick ticket

Fast car

Jet plane

High speed train

Tearaway taxi

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The long and the short of a part of my life Volume 1 Page 23

Moon

Kate is far away

Moon & sodium light

Such nonsense

Not to be together

In the best years of our life

Could we afford the liquor

Would we make the time

OK these nights don't turn up too often

But when they do

We ought to grab at them together

A soft touch

For the skies that drift to cloud

A desire

To take the steps unknown

Kate would like these prints

Plymouth, Devon

In the style

Of the Great Western railway poster

Bowling green bowlers smoke

Ogden's St Bruno Flake

Southern Transports motto states

‘Fresh air for all’

Plymouth Hoe

Plymouth Hoe

Plymouth Gin

Did they play with perspective

Are we also, so self, so self-important

That we miss out on the main chance

Sometimes it seems

Seriousness

Holds the upper hand

Soft words

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The long and the short of a part of my life Volume 1 Page 22

Thanks for the drift of smoke

A barbecue in the woods

Meat, red meat alive on the flames

So easily I turn to anger

Was it ever so with a woman

My girl says I don't criticise

But do I praise her enough

Boy could I take a cigarette

Tread out across the boardwalk decking

Take a steak with cold beer

And garnished tossed salad

So easy it is to drink

Was it ever so with vocation

Not hard to be self critical

But do I praise the self

With such self-sufficiency

Strips across the sky

Jet streams over the Atlantic

Smell of smoke fills the air

Efforts of a local woodland cutter

We could all make a case

Each of us is a strategist at heart

But tonight just guests in some hotel

Just lovers of natures night-time beauty

He moves away with his cheroot

So as not to offend; times changed

Thirty years ago, in Huddersfield

Or anywhere else in the western world

Cigarette ash trays and steel match strikers

Built into Draughtsmen's drawing boards

Engineers, the meekest of all the species

Most often chose not to decide

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The long and the short of a part of my life Volume 1 Page 21

Where the land meets the sky

(Almost echoes here of Larkin)

Weddings of bureaucracy are my fancy

A new tenth hole

Across the valley

Level with my window

Boy the knees sure ached

All those years ago

Up and down the fairways

In and out of the familiar rough

Graham went to Malaysia

Tim is where he was, more or less

Me, well you know, memories

Maybe it is why I write so much of mist

Why it is easier to write the words of love

Than to be the giver of love

Maybe it is why I write born of compulsion

Why the moments charge at me relentless

& all trains of thought are evidently lost

Bare skin, that always does it for me

That and the silver blue pink tinted sky

Over the hills, far beyond the distance

Hear the blues guitar on the juke box

The soft crack of canons on the pool table

Another blue blood cinema paradisio

Praise for the Tory leaders maiden speech

Yes how the country was betrayed

To have built up such debt, honestly

All the while, of this sickly verbose

Their brand new BMW cabriolets

Sit pristine in the golf club car park

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