I, you, and a chorus of strangers

My foot slips, ankle deep

Into the puddle of muddy water

Your laughter is seen

Looking back into the headlights

This is a Saturday evening

Out on the Lincolnshire Wolds

If you listen closely

You can hear the stars in the sky

The camera clips the top off the spire

As we travel down and along Westgate

The photographer is unsteady I might say

With her hands stretched out of the open sunroof

If you listen closely

You can hear those wheels roll over

Back at the cathedral

A congregation was gathering

Across the top of Castle Hill

The gentlemen in evening dress

Carry their instruments

In leather bound cases

If you listen closely

You can hear the cough

Of the homeless warrior

This is a long way from

The football stadium at Hillsborough

Where today with nigh on twenty-four thousand

Their songs were less of reverence

Or even of untold celebration

Though if you listen closely

You may still hear their ritual timbres

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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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