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Monday, 1 August 2022

Commencements

The first telephone conversation

Would likely have been in late September

Because we had examinations in mid-October

In between those dates

I had been on a revision weekend

In Gladstone’s library, at Hawarden, North Wales


Tears

And pain

And love

Love

And pain

And tears


We had been

Together, and apart

Apart, and together

The first departure

To call it such a thing

Was without determination


Hello

And hello

And hello again

Goodbye

Yes, goodbye

Or may it be au revoir


The first kiss was in…

On a campus university

At an OU summer school

I had been

Beside myself with certainty

I hoped you would understand



Sunday, 31 July 2022

Decoration - Conversation

Another clock

Which also does not move

Though a bronze coloured lampshade

Hangs symbolically beside it


This is the old warehouse

With a pen and ink sketch

Of horse and cart

Beneath the pulley


I take a ginger flapjack

As Lou Reed sings

Take a walk on the wild side

Surprised by the coincidence I sip


My piping-hot black Americano

And take a call from my daughter

Who is on her way to collect her children

- I am her fallback conversation 



Saturday, 30 July 2022

Illuminate

We cannot have

What we cannot have

However much

That pains us


Yet not to forget

The love

All of the love known

Even in one lifetime


Not meaning to trade

On another’s love

But to have known love

In the gifted and the given


Listen

How quiet it is

How still it is

On this unsettled morning


Are we artists

Or are we warriors

Can anyone explain to me

How to have seen the light



Friday, 29 July 2022

Worse

So close

Together

Yet so far apart


How distant

The worlds

Where souls don’t meet


A purpose

For the action

But what purpose


A reason

For the posture

But what reason 



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Thursday, 28 July 2022

Food And Drink

It wasn’t the West Indies jerk chicken

Or the October birthday marker

Although that played a part

Especially when followed by

The nitrogen enhanced ice-cream


We had walked through the park

Then alongside the canal

Until we reached the outpost

Of the nation’s capital city

Where the glass asks us to reach for the sky


It wasn’t the ride

Out to our boat hotel

On the edge of the financial quarter

Where buildings are deserted

At both ends of the day


We had travelled from the north

To meet with friends and children

Or just to be together

Visiting galleries and museums

To wash ourselves in beauty


It wasn’t the Italian restaurant

By the lights at Piccadilly

Although that plays a part

Especially the shared tapas style

And the £37-00 glass of Barolo