Coventry City 3 Sheffield Wednesday 1

It's a funny old game, nine against eleven, and last year; two of our boys lost their lives on their journey home. So today, in their memory you play our signature song; Hi ho Sheffield Wednesday.

Your fifteen thousand three hundred and thirty five supporters and our four thousand one hundred and fifty four travelling fans; they raise together in a humane and emotional tribute.

No wonder then that the unshaved stubble stands (on end) to attention here again now, as I watch the raindrops fall on to my windscreen, with my eyes softly focussed, slowly and thoughtlessly towards the endless oncoming traffic.

Later. I ponder about the American guy, sat across from me in the coffee shop; he is here tonight to talk to our cohort; about all things literary and publishing; I wonder; will he mention this commentary on our beautiful game.

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Autumn artefacts, oh my Hillman almanac

Did we ever have so much sunlight

I don't expect the inanimate objects

Can give me the answer, nevertheless

I feel you would be warmed

By the reflection in the blue glazed vase

Even now, as it is, empty of flowers

Or the clay formed hedgehog

With it's turned up nose cocking a snoot

At the Ivy and the swaying willow

And the Clarence cliff tea pot

Empty of function, it sits still

Lets the sun fall on its contemporary spout

The young girl, with a blue headscarf

She watches me, but as yet I have not started

To wonder what it is that she is thinking

In her plain gold frame

With a wide white cardboard border

Sunlight, sat here, yet going nowhere

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Words whispered on the breeze

The Wolds, up over the folded jackets

Of violins and strings galore

There through the flickered leaf

The video of the motor cycles roar

The stillness of the rolled up straw

Already giving birth to grass

If ever we should find silence

Would we could be so lucky to last

Up and down and pan

All around and all ways across the horizons

In the stillness of sleep

With a breeze from faraway offshore islands

You quietly began to talk

Of last nights film; about sliding off

From the edge of the world

About the contrasts

Between here and Kings Cross station

I listened with great intensity

To the comfort of your voice

I wanted you to talk forever

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Before and after the movies

You laugh at my eagerness

And completeness

My desire to reach dessert

You smile at my certainty

And surety, of the goodness

in Liquorice Allsorts

You fumble at my love

There open and tender

Touch me why don’t you

We walk in the night

You hold my hand under the stars

With a clear dark-sky wish

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Movement in another time

Dance; I can sweat, stutter about the dance floor

In a trance of confusion and a metaphor of clay

The bass player, with his sway, his self detached

Insignificance; dance for him is just another day

The lead guitar picks, as easily as his fingers wrap

The frets; no worry, steady; dance is the easy way

Jimba-jimba… a host of words from a far further

Fascination; with generosity dance is here to stay

Dance; I forget myself, lay lady lay

Oh let me move my body

More ever than I might my mind

To dance with my love I pray

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