Stepping Over

They aren’t memories anymore

More evocations of a moment perhaps

Yet nothing certain, nothing fixed

Total freedom for the imagination

I tell you this because that is how it felt

As I climbed out of my early-day bath

There I was, for an instant transported

To my land of misty morning make believe

Of course now you have the image

Of a naked, elderly man, unsteadily

Placing his foot onto the linoleum floor

Which, as we all know, is slippy as hell

Such that no amount of meadow grass

Or talk of Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey

Will resurrect that peace, which was not

A memory, but was the whole of a lifetime

 

Poltergeist

Does it help

That I am home alone

Is my writing more deceitful

Without the brake of your presence

Do you have to leave the house

To remove the weight of my burden

Do you too escape

So that I also may escape

The lattice-like web

Is a miracle of minute suspensions

Which catch the kaleidoscope of colours

Gifted as might diamonds gift a freedom of life

Compared to the pins, the needles

Which traverse my right leg, my buttock

Gifted by the sciatica, which in turn

Was given to me by the witch doctor of Harrogate

Almost two years ago now

In the sauna bath at the spa

Or was it down to the hotel bed

Which I almost fell out of

South Circular

Thirty years or so

Ten thousand days or more ago

To remember the metallic, sky-blue, rover car

To go there without knowing

To return, knowing more

Though still without knowing

A quarter of a million hours ago

Yet not a time

To clock-watch on the telephone

To be there but not be there

In the centre of the storm

Yet still to be there, but not there

Fifteen million minutes

A million fifteen minutes of fame

Fame for one in a million

To be acknowledged

Yet also, to be taken away

Back to that place of thirty years ago

Acting Allocations

Hope to be the lover

Hope to recover

Cope with the difficulties

Shore up the diminutives of indifference

Hope to rediscover

Hope to smother the loss

Cope with the onrush of newness

Shore up the wonders of past memories

See the sunlight

Stranded on the suspended threads

See the church

Camouflaged by trees

As the watches reflections

Strike the desk

Lined up by the wall

Be thankful for what only you do see

Immersed

In memories of what only you do know

Yet, yes, as always yet

Memories where others have played their part

Right Angle

I have lost my way a little

What, with sciatica

Toothache

And a swiftly diminishing bank balance

I have turned to old love

To write of love

I have gone back to past times

To pass this time of life

The spiders web

Woven from banister batik

To window, to wall

Developed day by day

Yet I don’t see the protagonist

Neither do I ever hear from the old love

Perhaps they, as I myself

Maybe they have also lost their way

I listen to Gregorian chant

Congratulate myself on the fact

That today the margins do not slope

I am, so it appears, almost upright