Thursday, April 28, 2011

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

Monday, April 25, 2011

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

Thursday, April 21, 2011

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

Monday, April 18, 2011

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With the out-of-date seeds, the too-short pieces of string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

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Happy


I’m waiting
On the steps for Jill

A young woman
Crosses the road
Gazing at her mobile phone
A big happy grin