City Lights

Other men talk of windows, or of the Spanish civil war. I lean towards their lintel, I open wide their lasting sore. You carry so many fallen voices; which is a joy for me.

Yet is for you another burden, a wider walk of misunderstanding. You think I have belief, yet I talk of the sodden horse with the cartload of deep doubt, being dragged along behind.

Though I acknowledge, that for me here now in my plimsolls it may be more appropriate to sing more swiftly, of a pony and trap. Your gift of love and care, given in heaps and bounds as a birthright.

To be held at bay, or kept at a distance by those around you. Which leads to your somewhat loss of confidence; you have doubt about the strength and depth of a love you are not allowed to share.

Other men talk of scriptures, or myths with folklore, or with a classical education easily to hand. Your talk is open, open and wanting deeply of love.

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Can we go now

In your house

You search for a home

Beginning to believe

The jealousies

Perceived or otherwise

In your home

You search for a house

An open door or a window

To allow the light to enter

And the silent abuse to leave

In your mind

You search for a reason

Even an explanation

Which casts yet more blame

In your easily held direction

In your reason

You search for a mind

Even a stillness or a place

That is brought on

By escape, or the unlit shadows

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Passage ways

Gentleness, serenity, calm

Love touches with a whisper

Where the door is held open

Tender, night skies of stars

Clear of clouds, whispers land

Softly on unploughed furrows

Ageless; past generations talk

On beauty, of the passage

Of time, which tonight is still

Carriages, along cobbled streets

Past toffee shop windows

Breath blown softly, whispers: forever

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The pavement is being repaired

You walked ever so slowly, along James Street, in your long, fawn, padded anorak, over your long rubber, or leather, or rubber look wellington style boots. You are not from around here, or have you been here forever.

With your weather worn face, you appear to have walked into unsteady times, the winds though are less now than in your past. The surgery; if that is where you are going, is only a few hundred yards, and now, once again the sun is beginning to shine. I only caught a glimpse of you, so why should I think of Chernobyl, or Bosnia, or Kazakhstan.

And you know, I too am not from these parts, though I feel to settle and sit more easily here than how I imagine it is for you. Are you in exile; are you lost, are you lonely, do my words come too fast? Ok, I will try to slow down, wander about in my cathedral mind, or recall the church with the beggar, in the Kos summer sun; another place where all I did was look.

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Tonight we present…

Tonight we have a new band member; here from India, fresh from her trip to the top of the mountains. Fresh from her affair, of sorts, with the pale complexion and fast hands of the entirely feminine fiddle player.

The boss; he's been ravished and bewitched by her beautiful, brazen, bare faced emblazoned eyes, and her mantra, in four-eight time, interlaced with the bouncing bow of the fiddlers finger strings

The drone of it all is enchanting; Mark said that they played music from Get Carter. He thought it was shot in Doncaster, I thought on South Shields sands or thereabouts.

Yes, you said, that was the main body of it, only two or three scenes in South Yorkshire. Later we walk home, through the familiar passages; in the darkness. That time of year when the moon seems to take longer to turn.

I have been drinking Pale Rider, a beer with a lightness of sight and taste, and with its 5.2% strength it is a particular favourite.

Now the stereo plays I can't give you anything but love, a song from long, long ago by the Mills Brothers. I wonder if, with their bewitching smiles they told anyone of their well-sold intricate, intimate, anything but hidden affair

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