Truth & Friendship

We told each other stories:

He spoke of the petrified fell walker who was stuck on the precipice. Even though my friend was there with his thirteen year old son he took time to talk and coerce the climber who had frozen on the edge of the shear peak. Back at the hotel the climber told my friend’s wife that her husband had saved his life for certain.

My story had less depth of detail yet it also concerned the power of the mind. I was driving my son, who I was collecting after he had visited his friends at Hull university. From the very point of picking him up I gradually convinced myself that I was going to drive off the Humber Bridge.

I referred to Billy Joe McAllister and the Tallahassee bridge, my friend told me the name of the song and the singer. He also said the mind could be a particularly powerful beast. Let's hope it's not another two years until we meet again, in the Hall Garth hotel sauna. 

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Final Walk

Drawn from the words

How absurd still to reach out for you

Driving by kerbs aching to impeach the truth

You, my one love, so long in the making

You, my one heart, so strong in the braking

Ten years of loss to blame

On that the day of saddest of blue

Glad-rags packed away, off to bleach the blackest hue

The hurt is deep, although more so the longing

The ache goes on, increasing also the non-belonging

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One Track Mind

I won't forget

The wooden floor

The single door

The orange-rust bed settee

Her turquoise cardigan

The intensity of it all

That all of this should come

From listening to just one song

By that fine man Pat Metheny

All of this

After reading Ben Lerner's 

Leaving Atocha Station

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End of One Thing

When there is no more to articulate

The bright smiles have turned to pain

With nothing left there to pontificate

Sunshine is replaced by falling rain

New words then needed to eradicate

Clean phrases to help erase the stain

No time for doubt or to self-medicate

Fresh thoughts help improve the game

All of this brought on by the sight of the bright and shiny bob-cut brunette who smiled and waved

When the singer sings to emancipate

And turns the way of the brave

With no fear that she may ruminate

The crowd will once more surely wave

Release the lines with light to elucidate

Frame the images as true nature gave

No clowns are there left to imitate

The truth of love is all you need to crave

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Into

I am on the promenade in June

I am alone, but that does not matter

There is a beach cafe, not too far away

I am warm, in the meditative midday sun

Already I have been writing quite some time, yet this mood hit me in an instant, while reading John Fante's Ask The Dust

I have no desire to move

I am settled into the surroundings

There is light traffic, but that's no bother

I am happy watching passers by pass by

What was I thinking, not to have washed out my mouth; the residue of lust, all mindful and horny

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