VCN 2

I had been on a long train journey, to the South-West of England. On the station platform I bumped into a young woman, who I used to know from my creative writing education in Buxton. She was bedraggled and bereft; half-dressed, penniless, and in debt. She wanted to borrow money, and asked if I could take her with me.

We were in a large rectangular room, newly refurbished, in a modern style. One of my sons was there, I'm not sure which one. The house was on Dartmoor, at Shaugh Prior, a village I boarded in for a short while, but that was a good many years ago.

I realised that I hadn't made a booking (I used to have the flat next door apparently). I was pulling up my trousers when the lady of the house came in, the young woman from Buxton was laid half-naked on the floor.

I asked if it was ok to stay for a few days, I had a meeting to attend, and staying over seemed to be the only option down here. That's fine she said, and asked me if I'd posted her booklet; she said she was relying on me, since the old service had ended.

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Read Between The Lines

Willows in the garden
Daffodils in the verges
So soon to change this life
So soon to discard the urges

There then at a distance
There then in your far off county
There then, just as if for instance
There then you were the bounty

I will write about someone quite different
Someone I thought I knew, or know
I will write about, a circumstance
Of love flourishing, as love begins to grow

For a while there I was nowhere
I was listening to The Eels, singing
Their sad song True Original; it was you
You I thought that they were singing of

And I was nowhere
No more than a listener
No more than a stooge
No more than a bereaved looker on

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Pitch

It was dark when we arrived
Then the rain
Began steadily to fall

It was dark when we arrived
As the doubts
Began certainly to call

It was dark when we arrived
It was raining
When we began unloading

It was dark when we arrived
Then the pages
Gradually started unfolding

It was dark when we arrived
Your voice
So gently withholding

It was dark when we arrived
Your words, so high
I could not find the beholding

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Patch

It's got something to do with sugar, or saccharin, or pretence, or falseness, or rising up to be, to be up there above me.

Setting yourself to be, to be up there, above me; righteous, proper, good, reliable, all of those traits which I never could aspire to.

Setting yourself up, on a pedestal, at a distance; keep away you said, keep away you implied, keep away, keep away, keep well away.

And the crooked branches, of the crooked tree, in the crooked mist, beneath the crooked rain.

And then the light, and then the green-shoots, and then the sadness, left someway behind me.

And then the blossom, and then the road sign, and then the time, for someone new to find me.

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Nothing Firm

I am a little late starting this morning, I suppose I could blame it on the new car, I could blame it on having to fill up with fuel, I could blame it on all sorts of things, but I'm not looking for blame, not this morning.

The new car is going to take a while to get used to, it's a radical change from my small car, a bit more luxury in my life; a life of driving, lived out more safely, for the rest of my working days.

The corners seem a good deal smoother, the rough road surface feels considerably less rough, the music is markedly clearer, the whole thing then way more luxurious.

A tiny yellow breasted bird flies across the road, from hedge to hedge; the highway is almost empty, myself, and one other car, travelling in the opposite direction.

There is a peace, a calm, a sense of quiet; I feel to be cruising, I feel to be at ease, I feel less stressed, about the two hours journey ahead.

My partner helped me with the purchase, I sense she felt the need to let me off the hook; to somehow take a second look at what we both needed.

And perhaps through the all of this you have been banished, perhaps your ability to influence my emotions is critically weakened.

Yes there, up in the blue sky, your essence is almost vanquished; yet still my insincerity bell occasionally goes off, cynically seeking out how:

To turn off the light
To burn out the ether
To wonder, with insight
How I managed without either

Still we follow the tractor
Still we follow the trailer
Still I think of the time
I wrote postcards to mail her

We've past the minor distraction
Heading out to a future attraction
A flashback to a Worthing morning
The Cuban music vividly blowing

The hedgerows are growing to green
Stained grey clouds fade to blue
We're approaching the airport now
I think of those flights, I think of you

It is the second escape
I don't have to wait
For the boarding card
Or the opening of the gate

It's all in the mind you see
These thoughts of you and me
Those times, not now meant to be
It's all in the mind you see

I drive by the passenger terminal
Without a second glance
My thoughts; subliminal, ethereal
You see I know I've had my best chance

I've turned the stereo up, a notch or two
Nostalgia, listening to the old words
To remember that I sat in a modern space
Writing out my lustful thoughts of you

Those words were the old times
The fast lines, not so fast as once forgotten
Those words were the old rhymes
The sort sighs, not short now of going rotten

Almost at the motorway, struth
A cocoon of sounds
That round me back to my youth
No need anymore for truth

When it's only my words that happen

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