Nothing Firm

I am a little late starting this morning, I suppose I could blame it on the new car, I could blame it on having to fill up with fuel, I could blame it on all sorts of things, but I'm not looking for blame, not this morning.

The new car is going to take a while to get used to, it's a radical change from my small car, a bit more luxury in my life; a life of driving, lived out more safely, for the rest of my working days.

The corners seem a good deal smoother, the rough road surface feels considerably less rough, the music is markedly clearer, the whole thing then way more luxurious.

A tiny yellow breasted bird flies across the road, from hedge to hedge; the highway is almost empty, myself, and one other car, travelling in the opposite direction.

There is a peace, a calm, a sense of quiet; I feel to be cruising, I feel to be at ease, I feel less stressed, about the two hours journey ahead.

My partner helped me with the purchase, I sense she felt the need to let me off the hook; to somehow take a second look at what we both needed.

And perhaps through the all of this you have been banished, perhaps your ability to influence my emotions is critically weakened.

Yes there, up in the blue sky, your essence is almost vanquished; yet still my insincerity bell occasionally goes off, cynically seeking out how:

To turn off the light
To burn out the ether
To wonder, with insight
How I managed without either

Still we follow the tractor
Still we follow the trailer
Still I think of the time
I wrote postcards to mail her

We've past the minor distraction
Heading out to a future attraction
A flashback to a Worthing morning
The Cuban music vividly blowing

The hedgerows are growing to green
Stained grey clouds fade to blue
We're approaching the airport now
I think of those flights, I think of you

It is the second escape
I don't have to wait
For the boarding card
Or the opening of the gate

It's all in the mind you see
These thoughts of you and me
Those times, not now meant to be
It's all in the mind you see

I drive by the passenger terminal
Without a second glance
My thoughts; subliminal, ethereal
You see I know I've had my best chance

I've turned the stereo up, a notch or two
Nostalgia, listening to the old words
To remember that I sat in a modern space
Writing out my lustful thoughts of you

Those words were the old times
The fast lines, not so fast as once forgotten
Those words were the old rhymes
The sort sighs, not short now of going rotten

Almost at the motorway, struth
A cocoon of sounds
That round me back to my youth
No need anymore for truth

When it's only my words that happen

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Lost In The Days I Meandered - Four

Jersey girl how I've missed you
How I've wished
To walk again
On your soft submissive sands

Jersey girl how I've insisted for you
I could not resist
Your love
Held, half-firm, in my clutching hands

Those few islands
Off the coast of France
Those few evenings; a song, a drink
A comfortable conversation per chance

You all know that I can't stand pain
I'd sooner stand out in the falling rain
You all know that I'm really rather vain
I'd no sooner dance than stake a claim

We climbed the boulders by the lighthouse
We tiptoed down the slipway to the sand
You were considerably unsure of me
I steadied you, I held you by your hand

We drove out, in the open topped car
To the five-mile shack, for a barbecue
You had doubts about your suitability for me
I took your hand, I sure was sure of you

You got tickets for the theatre
A poet, without a backing band
You so pure were unduly unsure of me
I was certain, I took you by the hand

We rode ourselves into the rip-tide
We crashed into the seventh wave
The doubts though surfaced once more
This time it was the best we could not save

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Lost In The Days I Meandered - Three

Geldof said that all artists rummage
For a reason, for a vision, for a ruse
Even, to help set them gloriously free

He talked of stealing, reeling out
The words, the reverbs that an artist
Looks for, in and from his muse

And that's exactly what I do
On these drive-to-work early mornings
I look out for every other line, signs
For another way of seeing you

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Lost In The Days I Meandered - Two

It's not long now until I might see you
It's not long until I bring our son back home
I don't quite know how he is feeling
I don't know how much the experience hurt

I do know, for certain, and without bias
That no way has he reached his ceiling
And his love, his love, she will surely wait
His bridges of love may not have been burnt

I'm feeling pretty good about myself
I've lost a little bit of weight
I've left the biscuits in the cupboard
I hardly ever reach for the After Eight

I still want to lose another pound or two
I'm on track, as if leading the railway freight
I have a vision to realise; as once of you
How long, how long will I have to wait

Around the half blind corner
Up onto the lengthy straight
I tried your every door
I stood behind the five-bar gate

I worked myself up in such a way
I was in a pretty hopeless state
I couldn't, I cannot, comprehend
How such love, such loss, was my fate

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Lost In The Days I Meandered - One

Last night we watched a wonderful programme, about WB Yeats, written and narrated by Sir Bob Geldof; he introduced almost every Irish related artist that you can think of, who had been invited to read Yeats' poems.

Yeats, the master of the poem; I learnt so many things that I did not know about him, for one I wasn't at all clued about the depth of his involvement in politics.

Sir Bob told a good old story, about a man who truly changed things; he talked about the need to go on living, about the role of death having so little a role in life.

Yet it is death that changes most of us, most of us have come through, or passed by death, in one scenario or another.

I've written a few death poems, death with you right there in my mind; the death of our relationship, a death, whose purpose, I may never be destined to find.

That death, I knew of no such kind; so much easier to write of the loss, not the death; so much easier trying to displease you, without giving a toss.

But could I put it in a story, could I give it the gloss, could I sit in that smoke filled room, inhaling from the sticks of joss, could I ever save myself from writing the dross.

I write soft porn stories, you are almost always the source, they are neither death nor glory, but of course they are written for you, studying at The Bourse.

I sleep with those images good and close to me, I'm in a semi-dream world, it is half the world I see; there go the morning tractors, we're all on our way to work.

Of course you know so well of the country, how could I have been such a jerk.

From St Lawrence to St Ouens you watched the fruit and flowers grow; yet to say that I was the one, no, that was a love you could not show.

We spent so long together, we spent so long apart, you were in the horse drawn carriage, I was in the potato cart.

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