Breathe in, breathe out
Headphones on, listening to Making Change Easy
Back straight, firm against the wooden chair
Across the valley, a rising bank of trees
Much the same view as from that basement room
In the Kenn (Exeter) Farmhouse B&B in 2010
Except today I am at a top floor window
Which does nothing for my fear of heights
In 2010 I wrote of 2004
Due to my geographic proximities
Today I am here to refine a collection of 2004
Feet flat, on the carpeted floor
My book, Gregory Poems 1985-86 are beside me
Was that when my writing, or my poetry began
If so, then what made me turn to the verse
Yes, I had bought and read, John Lennon’s book
In His Own Write, which was a present
For my older brothers twenty-first birthday in 1964
When we lived in The Crown Inn, Birdsedge
I was still at school, though often playing truant
Especially from English, and French; but not
For too too much longer; I left to learn a trade
To become an Electrical Engineer, not a writer
Happenstance in Heptonstall
Poems Started at Lumb Bank
Arvon 2018
