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With the out-of-date seeds, the too-short pieces of string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

Valentine

As sure as summer

Follows spring

As sure as a pebble

Flies from a sling

As swallows mate

Upon the wing

As Bob and Dorothy

Follow Bing

As Elvis Presley

Was the King

As a ready microwave

Goes ping

As your morning smile

Makes my heart go zing

You dazzle me

Like a rapper’s bling

Because you’re my Valentine

And that’s the thing

A Million Tons of Junk

Look at all that stuff!

Without electricity

It’s nothing but

A million tons of junk

Like me without you

But when you flip my switch

I am cathode rays
Neon signs
Humming radios

Radar blips

Torch lights

City lights

Satellites

The cries and shouts

And wails and hurrahs

Of Fender guitars

Of bands in bars

I am transformed

Capacitated

Transcended

By your loving

Electricity

In Good Shape

I Circle you

Like picnic bears

And cuddle you

All night

Triangle you

(Each corner

A space filled

With delight)

I Oblong you

My obligation’s

Elongate and sure

I Square you

To my conscience

And consciousness

And more

I Diamond you

You’re priceless

Your Star shape

Cannot fall

You’re my sweet

And sexy Hexy shape

But I Heart you

Most of all