The Hotel Blues Again

It’s clear

I am here

Where you are not

And I have got

The Hotel Blues Again

I watch distracted

Hand with pen

Write these words down

I’m in a foreign town

The Hotel Blues Again

The room is fine

The pictures on the wall do not offend

It’s clean, uncluttered

The bed is comfy and the wine

Has travelled relatively well

To dull and spark my brain in turns, I’ve got

The Hotel Blues Again

I phone you

And we chat. The train was late.

And I got wet in unexpected rain

The meal was Thai (red curry – hot)

And it’s not just being here alone

Upon a rock that’s doomed in time and space

In truth I can’t explain
The how or why I've got

The Hotel Blues Again

When Did That Happen?

I’m reading about a parallel universe

When I notice

That the train

Is travelling in the opposite direction

It must have changed direction
While I was in the loo

Coming Home on the North Downs Line

From the Great Western main line

Cross country in a grubby train

From Reading 4B

A smudgy pencil of a platform

Crossing stockbroken hinterlands

Of pre-fab housing and forsaken warehouses

We shadow the chalk ridge of the Downs

Wokingham

Blackwater North Camp

Trees seem barely able to summon up the energy to bud

Allotments, a glass-less greenhouse

Bungalows and council houses

And an English flag

Ash

Guildford

A tunnel

To the North the Hogs’ back

Scrubby fields

We amble through Chilworth

In the window reflections

A woman in a headscarf

Tucked in to a Brendan Behan polemic

A woman in a pale mac

Leather bag on her lap like a small dog

Engrossed in daily dreams

Dorking Deepdene

Rusty rails

And what do the three horses

Make of us shuffling past

As the cold night approaches?

Ryegate

Redhill

At last Gatwick

On the Brighton main line

Keepsake

Oh

Where can I hide my heart

Those hot and secret feelings?

In a forest of well-loved trees?

In a book of scrawled-upon leaves?

In an abandoned tin in the biscuit cupboard

Where the golden light

Won’t escape the on-tight lid?

So

Maybe I won’t hide it

Wear it on my sleeve

In the time-honoured

Or attach it to my hat

With an ostentatious silver pin

No

I’ll keep it in the kitchen drawer

With the out-of-date seeds, the too-short pieces of string

And the plastic bit of something that may be important one day

Yes, I’ll keep it there

Next to yours

Happy

I’m waiting

On the steps for Jill

A young woman

Crosses the road

Gazing at her mobile phone

A big happy grin