The best thing about being a poet
Is meeting you
Whosoever would have imagined
Such an occasion
Ships in the night, colliding
With all of
The coincidence
Of the chancellor balancing the books
You in your armchair, listening to the radio
Reading that collection of poems
That your best friend gave you
Last Christmas
And here I am staring out at you
From the page, who would have thought
All those years ago
That we would meet again tonight
Strength is having something in reserve
Love is giving it all away
Strength is to know that your mentor
Or combatant is incorrect
Love is easily to keep your powder dry
The barman practices his cricket stroke
Forward defensive with a straight eye
The caricature sits beneath his caricature
A regular’s night on a regular night
The strangers silver hair shines
His rosy cheeks shine, he has an engaging
Smile, and an easy happy laugh
Now remember we might not ourselves lead very interesting lives, so best to start making it up or doing some research. The station is by a church, in a city with a cathedral, plenty to go on there then; right back to the reformation.
On the outskirts of the city, passed the Ash and Silver birch; the flora and fauna is overwhelming, even in November the leaves hold steady on the trees. And the waters are without a ripple except for the local explosion with the arrival of the swans.
In and out of the industrial estates; corrugated buildings, corrugated containers. Our first stop, our first of many, for this is a steady trundle and not the inter city tilting express. The aeroplane that you saw earlier, you thought its size unusual and therefore bound for Iraq.
Yes, that time in intelligence sure lingers; a faster jet leaves its stream overhead, now that is in a southerly direction. Lemon, lime, orange, brown, green, silver, golden, and thousands or millions of varied tints in between.
This is a flat space, where you make your brush lined corridors. Out away in the distance are coal fired power stations with cooling towers oozing their steam out, out into the otherwise clear blue sky.
Swinderby station is now a private house. Just one passenger climbs on board and no one alights, this is truly transport in the community. We pass a tidy house in a tidy field, nothing else for miles around; would you, live there.
Scrapyards half-full of redundant vehicles and the sunlight flashing, as if a stroboscope was at work; we go by fields of unknown vegetables and pass surveyors standing at the level crossing, with their tripod mounted theodolite.
Decay and caravan car parks are next to Collingham station stop. Ahead of schedule we have a moments wait, before moving off past the dormer bungalows of domestic life. Another level crossing, at Cottage Lane, my mind wanders; who used to use this railway. What were they doing, where were they going. What was the impetus for the construction of this linear passage.
For all about is fields and inconsequential hamlets. Only the occasional village, surely the trains were not to transport broccoli or sacks of potatoes or peas, or wheat or barley, or even sugar beet.
We are by the river Trent, a canal lock and two railway lines crossing in the sign of a laid down cross; this is British Sugar country in Newark, Nottinghamshire, where the tall singular chimney endlessly belches out its excrement.
The Waitrose car park is crowded, even at this early hour folk want to buy the best that is about; a couple get on board here, with his brown boots and grey flannels you might expect him to have a retired railway workers pass.
I am struck by the quality of the ticket clerks trousers, I watch as he strides with his close cropped head, he moves with style, verve and substance up and down the carriage. But I have not mentioned the lady sat across though two seats down, with red plastic sandals, patchwork jacket, and silver grey hair, she reads a book; Food is better medicine than drugs. Ah yes, rehabilitation.
Hereabouts the trees have lost some of their sparkle; browns, black cherry reds and dusted blueberry pervade. The flicker breeze at Rolleston is calling time. It seems less than a mile but maybe I was dreaming. Anyhow Fiskerton was another one person stop, with brambles and hollies and electricity pylons all in a line.
Looking to the east, into filtered sunlight; meadows with copses, the occasional willow and some upstanding upright pines, all of this to the east of Bleasby where the horse is wearing its overcoat and standing in shadow away from the rays of the bright sunshine.
The mud flats of the sludge dump are populated by blackbirds of a sort. Open waters catch the sun and give off innumerable reflections. The lady who has joined me is tidy, with a smart brooch on a well tailored jacket, she sits, talking to herself, making notes.
Actually I realise that she is singing, and sorting out her Christmas present list; if this is contentment then I am in the queue. We pull up at Londham, take a little time to settle and slowly move away.
The lady and I strike up a conversation; she tells me about her life in the theatre, having to fend for herself, when only women with money could get a mortgage; we chatter away easily.
I am going to Nottingham to watch a three minute film, which itself of course may not be too too interesting. But today, for me already, all of this has happened, and it is not yet eleven.
She was sixteen, I'm sure you know that
And to come from town was quite a way
You must have known it would not be tit for tat
To chase the girl yet not to play… sailaway
I know you have to be around for everyone
And that you have a swathe of friends
But, even if you give out your special song
You may not expect the girl to make amends
To invite three; at least three that I know of
There may have been more
Certainly they arrived before the police
And the other pretty girls queued outside the door
Not all at your brothers bequest either
Nor for your football friends misdemeanours
Neither luvvies, or hippies from the Builder's club
Or dance floor divas, from Lord Jim's Discotheque
You would have enquired further I said
I thought it wrong to trespass, to invade
Someone else's privacy; it was just an excuse
The lack of an adventurous spirit anywhere within
Yet the images are carried with me, the once
Deeply overgrown garden; trimmed back
To the stubble and the bare earth beneath
The ivy and the clematis; once in flower, now clung
From all sides of the cottage and the roof
The window panes and all along the veranda
Where I guess you listened to the radio
Or sat drinking lemonade with your sister
Perhaps share a sandwich, deep in conversation
Awash with plans to build your own writing room
With wicker chairs and potted plants, in the middle
Of the garden, falling to stream and church spire
The original curtains, do they hold all of your stories
Which you no doubt told through endless summers
Early winter mornings, a view out over the frost
Your steaming tea, and double-buttered teacakes
