East or West no matter

Your private view, my questions of nothingness

Your colony of artists in an unromantic city

My question, without answer; the foot of your page

Your new list, a white board for place and purpose

Of landscape and society, of energy (my word)

Of history and a sense of loss

That Americans can hardly imagine

The desolate mid west, the dust bowls

The world at war with new found proclaimers

The stains are almost gone. Your ancestors

And many many more, have left behind

All that you now most earnestly seek to re-establish

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Salts Mill

Give or take

A few months

Nick was getting out of the pool

Forty years ago today. 

In his wake the legacy

Of squiggly lines and a Yorkshireman

Somewhere between Bradford and Los Angeles

An in flight regular between LAX and Heathrow

The diner menu - printed in 1993 offers

A serving of an £8-00 burger salad

No chips but accompanied by authentic

In the curvy shape bottle, Coca-cola

Its one-hundred year old recipe is listed

Then twisted with ice, and a slice of lemon

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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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