Don't Talk About Those You Don't Know About

This is seriously unusual
To talk to you of a Sunday lunchtime
When the sun is high and when the sky is blue
When I'm on my way to watch Sheffield Wednesday

I'm staying at my brother Leslie's tonight
Then tomorrow it's up to County Durham for the day job
Though I may well call in
At Yorkshire Sculpture Park along the way

And you, yes, already you see, you are in on the itinerary
How couldn't you be
How could I drive all this way without you
Without talking to you, for you, about you

It is a different light at lunchtime
Different to that early morning start of the days light
My eyes, my mind, they now see with a clearer sight
In the words of Jason Isbell: Those were different days

The coincidence of all coincidences
I spoke on the telephone with a lady from Jersey
Indeed a lady called Wendy if you could believe me
I don't know if you know her

She has some connection, via her family to the bailiff
But I don't know the details; maybe you do know her
Maybe you don’t, it's too far back for me to remember
To try to recall all of the everything that you ever told me

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Converse Conversely

You
And the sensitive theme
Of an imaginary teardrop
Slowly, oh, so so slowly
Rolling down my cheek

You
And the evocative dream
Of talking, and talking
For such a long long time
About talking later

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Balcony Cafe

Fresh fruit Pavlova
Large black Americano
Photographs
Of the sculptures

And the Red Telephone Box
Indulgence
Laid upon indulgence
Laid upon the greatest indulgence of all

Wire ropes
Cored through metal posts
Rust forms
At the exact point of interaction

Meditation
On the Yorkshire Stone steps
Beneath Not Vital's
Let 100 flowers bloom

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Ask, Then Ask Her Again

Why
Maybe the best of all questions
Why to return
Why to reinforce the memories

Why not
Perhaps then an even better question
Why not feel
Why not re-engage the emotions

Where and when
To embellish the situation
To create a depth of field

When and where
To give a distance
To chance at definition

How and who for
Without doubt
To be at the centre

Who for and how
With doubt
Though hints at clarification

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Bare And White

I was an apprentice to a head gardener

Although I have to say his demeanour was more of poacher or gamekeeper, a wily old character

He sold flowers to the master, most of which were picked from the master's grounds

This particular morning we were persuading the master to buy two large roses

The head gardener was showing off two very large roses

One placed to each side of the not insubstantial fireplace

Afterwards I was taking a cutting of a flower, from a bush or a tree

In pulling off the flower I also pulled away a long strip of bark

Which showed the bare white branch beneath, as if to remind me of virginity

Or as if to remind me of the sap, which once did rise

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