Being there, looking even
Although mostly, not paying attention
Yet wanting to be immersed
As if one could be, of something
Half within, the rest without
A group of moments
Carriages on the railway
As if one could be, entirely
Never then the objection
In seeking universal acceptance
In this, so approachable, likeable
As if one could be, found by
As a younger man I did not go to Oxford, or Cambridge; perhaps someone expected that I would have, or could have, but it was not me; also I think. Most unlikely was it my parents either.
For I was innocently and overwhelmingly happy at Birdsedge County Primary School yet I was incredibly sad, disturbed even, or worse still perhaps at Penistone Grammar School.
Why do I mention Oxford? Well you see I am reading a book Sea Room - An Island Life
I am impressed by the writing; it is of the sort I think I might have learnt, had I gone to Oxford.
I did though go, with my last lover, to the Outer Hebrides, in September 2011. I felt great empathy with the writer Adam Nicholson who was given the Shiant Islands.
Although he was gifted them by his father - an Oxford Man.
Silk or aluminium, the
Minimum thrust; lust
Across silver skies
Trust those who do, just
As to leave the rest
At home, all alone
With their doubts
And limited destinations
The station points
Changed, I rearranged
The circumstances; took
Chances galore
More I shouted; always
To up the ante, whilst not
Ever, fully knowing the score
I never did become a pilot although I did flirt with the idea of buying a hot air balloon, then, a few years later, my lover of the time gave to me the birthday present of a flying lesson.
So I did take hold of the stick, if that’s the phrase, above the Channel Island of Jersey.
It was a calm day; ten minutes into the flight the instructor handed over the controls and advised me on manoeuvres.
We took in the sights; I was excited, elated, joyful as we circled in the skies above St. Helier, then onto St. Aubin; growing with confidence I responded positively to all I was asked to try, though still with some trepidation.
That was before he said:
'Do you want to land the aeroplane?’
We descended slowly, steadily to begin with, although the ground fair rushed beneath us towards the end; either way we did it, and I felt awfully good about all three of us.
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The final photograph of 2004 was of my ex, it was taken outside of our house, on Christmas Day, in the snow; she looks moribund, vulnerable; there is that lost soul look in her eyes.
At the beginning of 2005 she was to tell me that she didn’t want to be my lover anymore; she said we could remain as friends, but our time as a couple had come to an end.
I was fearful of such an arrangement, I was even more fearful of being in her vicinity as I tried to build a new life for myself, consequently I left the family home, moved up country.
The poems are created, rewritten or edited in June, July and August 2018. The work is in preparation for an Arvon course which begins at the end of August, it is about putting together a poetry collection.
The final reworking of the poetry took place at Buckfast Abbey, in October, where I found the following words in Hubert Van Zeller’s book: We Live With Our Eyes Open, in a short story entitled Sex:
“Good heavens, so that’s the answer. Well I do call that beautiful, don’t you? Really beautiful. And to think that until this moment I simply hadn’t a clue.”
It is beautiful; all that people are waiting for is the clue.
We had held onto that clue, for quite some time actually.
