Forever red

I could step over this precipice

But is it that, the exclusion, the non involvement

This and that which has kept me sane

With tears in my eyes

I watch your final speech, your detachment

It seems you reach for my release

You use the word progressive

Who could argue with that

And for today at least, no one does

But this is not about you

Or your just and worthy cause

It is about me; should I, could I, take up the gauntlet

What about the idea that the student

Works harder than the master

Without the equality of pay

Or on the day that nothing happens

Either for that son of mine or so so many others

Of his generation, not tomorrow nor thereafter

Or of my own time ahead, without security

Of tenure or pension and anyway

What would that offer

Except the chance to rant and rave

I could step over the precipice

Or, after any and many a second thought

I could stay in the calm of this my lost and forgotten land

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I hear voices

Wood; turned, sanded, polished and varnish

Worthwhile work

Worthy of saving you from the sanatorium

A pint of beer, a reminisce

Of whatever happened

In that society of social gathering

Inside another room, twenty seven cubic metres

Nowhere further

For your outreach thoughts to roam

Should anybody work it out

The past is to pass it on

About that other idea, to clear you out

A coffee cup, a cake, an interrupted conversation

Stay awhile, please don’t go

Help me to understand

I like you, you are quite ordinary, and you see

I am frightened, I am afraid

Of becoming old, of being a responsible adult

It’s fun to play, to think unruly thoughts

Not to go home; not now or ever

Never not never to settle down

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Cake and Ale

Rectangular slots

Punched

With a fifty-tonne, more or less

Up and down printers press

Round wire loops

Bound

With a mothers son, more or less

In and out the crimplene dress

On the coffee table

Or by the kitchen fire

Madeira baked in the cooker

Of that we ever never tire

This booklet of mine

Rectangular rooms

Roundabout the houses

With a mothers son

Flowered vases

Peonies and posies

Victoria, Birdsedge

And Hepworth school

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Wave don’t clown

This one minute, sat without a worry

About where the next minute will be

Although soon to be there, no worry

The pile of tick- tock cycles

A pyramid, or fire stack, interwoven

Interlocked, tick-tock, tick-tock

Pendulum, pendulum

Once again around the block

Pendulum, tick-tock

This one minute, sat as you say goodbye

Why, where will the next moment be

Although soon to be there will I

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Is it

The journey or the place

Being with you

Or not to know how it is

In any other

To be going

Or to be still

With you

Among daft smiles

Window cill, daffodil

Out to the wisteria

Under

And over

The thickened

Twisted branches

This chance lasted

Or began again

Not to show how it is

In any other

But to see

Openness and stillness

With you

Among, as we laughed awhile

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