How to dismantle
Such a thing
As I alone
Have constructed
To take a mallet
And a chisel
To the white block
Of plaster of Paris
To take a wash
Of a darker colour
To the study
Of plants and flowers
How to disassemble
Such a piece of work
As I alone
Have created
To take a sonnet
Or a limerick
To the free verse
Of another’s life
How to destroy
A lover
With the obsessiveness
Which I alone created
A new citizenship
For an old citizen
Of the other place
Boxes ticked
Facts cross-checked
All parameters sworn into
And what of the status
Does it allow the purchase of a home
Or a position of permanent employment
That you should meet their criteria
Shows how quickly time passes
Or how slow is my distant recall
That I always returned
To this island, nay county, of my birth
Shows a marked lack of real adventure
That this is your third island
Of substantial habitation
Perhaps shows a stable wanderer
Yet, for me, as a writer
Every day a new citizen
Every day an old mantra
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
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
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