The complication of those earrings the texture of the paint around your eyes the sun’s highlights in your hair
The redness of those parting lips such belief in everything we said the pristine shape of your nose
Lying on the roof your head close to my heart summer blushing the sky weren’t we beautiful weren’t we beautiful then
Nothing to fret about just prolong the passing day swaying through the city weren’t we beautiful there
The precision of our jaw-lines the optimism in our hearts skidding through that midnight snowfall spelling out each other’s names as I caught you in my arms
We were so alive so in love so beautiful at that moment in our lives…
Picking you up to go driving I’d get there early to watch you get ready both seventeen and tangled in that unspoken thing between us Cruising the looping country lanes in those dim headlight beams That was our place, alone together at last Two teenagers, eyeing each other sideways and wondering who each of us would be would you always stay right there would you always be in the car with me Another mile, another mile in those endless times…
Thrumming rain upon the roof your fingers knitted in the glovebox light always asking me so many questions our laughter lingering and playful in the freezing depths of northern winter You’d push me to say who I liked at school watching so carefully I’d study the glowing dashboard for a full five minutes turn the tape over, change the conversation stealing so many glances at your perfect saucer eyes so smart and so alive Another mile, another mile in our early lives…
Somewhere along the journey we’d stop the car, snuff out the lights and in the backseat, without a word we’d learn a new geography You’d breathe your lessons into me the beguiling wonder of our story skirting the youthful boundaries of a near-love I’d forever treasure And afterwards you’d finger our initials on the foggy inside of the glass I always loved that, but so sad that those smears outlasted us Another mile, another mile in those simple, priceless, times
Twenty years of change sailed by suddenly, from the silence, you called me heard I’m in town, saying ‘we should talk again’ I say ‘how about a drive…?’ Eyeing me from the driver’s seat you say I’d ‘become all the things I used to pretend to be’ you said it was ‘a good thing’ and now you teach at our old college you’re not married but there’s a good man waiting and the baby, she already looks like you Who’d have thought those teenagers were headed here running country laps, in those dim headlight beams another mile, another mile in those precious lives, we had to leave behind
Another mile, another mile I’m so glad we got to share those times…
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Her fingers tracing mine Lily danced me out of the garden those green eyes brimming lively with purest abandon Then barefoot on the boardwalk her summer dress riding high she leapt onto the jetty and gestured to the sky
We let our tanned legs hang below as we bottomed up the bottle the air was hot and heavy the sea around us peaceful There was lust upon our minds as a veil upon a bride the deepest searing truths politely shot between our eyes
And no man could deny us loose and open all the time our hands and fingers; wanderers tongues locked in a rhyme By the spit between those kisses our burning lips were sewn her dress was barely there my body carved from stone
With each nail driven into skin I felt a clapping thunder the temple tapestry was tearing as she pierced my thin armour A melody sung upon her voice a lyric loudly grows I’d have gladly turned my back on all that I held close
We could have traveled every sea taking turns to lead the way if only if only she’d have asked me if only I’d thought to stay…
Dusk light falling on the harbour the day became a dream with toes curled round the boards she danced me to my feet in one movement I was shirtless in another she was naked a smiling glance was shared as we leapt with fingers knitted
Our kisses painted salty lungs burning between breaths the solution we had longed for as our bodies coalesced We swam until our limbs ached then floated side by side in the moonlit wideness of her eyes; another world, I spied
I was so thirsty for the moment and drank it all too quickly my mind got blurred and cloudy my greatest drunken folly Too naive to know the value of the treasure in my grip like sand through careless fingers I stood and watched it slip
There was water on three sides and only one path back to land but somewhere on that journey I somehow lost her hand Now, I wonder if she thinks of us a moment spared for all we shared does she ever sit upon that jetty singing of a parallel despair
We could have traveled every sea wild adventure every day if only if only she’d have asked me if only I’d thought to stay
If only I’d had the wisdom to stay…
[2020]
Extra special thanks for reading, I know it’s a long one. 🙂
Darling, where have I been? I’ve been out driving I’m driving again down Summer lanes at night in the faded light like I used to when I was young back before I knew you back before all of this, now
I’ve been out driving where my mind is free I can think, but I don’t have to just keep the car on the road and along I go the music playing loud louder than you’d allow how I so love to hear it feeling the place and time like it is an ancient place and time
Where I’ve been is really ‘when’ I’ve been back to where I fell in love with a life so open wide with so much opportunity so much I could have been and though the car was empty I swear I could hear my old friends talking there voices coming from the back seats and they were laughing how I’ve missed that sound…
I’ve been out floating through those streets and villages beyond the commuter-belt handcuffs hurtling down a slick-black river of road Sometimes, I stop the car in the ditch by Hunger Hill Farm I lie on the metal roof watching the stars timeless, unfazed, above me like we did when we were younger like when I first met you…
Sometimes, I imagine you’re beside me but the ‘you’ when I first met you so free, so open, so in love with everything and she whispers in my ear ‘All of this is ours whatever we may want we may… yet… be…’ and I smile with shining eyes
How I loved you How I loved you then
Slowly, I drive home you hound me for where I’ve been complain about your day as I open my first beer imagining I’m still out there, somewhere…
I’ll always be out there a part of me will always be out there somewhere…
Out driving our first cars at night snaking the blackness of North East country roads I’d flick the headlights off hear the girls scream then back on and we’d crack up laughing
In our town, there wasn’t much to do but wander looping streets haunt the park outside of college blow house to house, see who was home or spend it lying in your bedroom laughing
When you and Chris split, he handled it okay drank too much a week or two and then got a little down but everything went on still way too soon for Mike to tell you so we all sat as friends and laughed
Back then, I couldn’t think of much else but Jenny but I loved the way you’d say my family name still hear it ringing from the depths of memory standing with you in some sticky bar and you collapsing into Mike laughing
They were gentle times, good times before we were scattered wide I don’t think I saw or thought of you that often twenty years just paced before our eyes how I hope you kept on laughing
With your man, your son your life carved out somewhere…
On a Brighton beach, one weekend this summer Mike was chatting, said ’the cancer took you’ and nothing more to add to that just taken – that’s all he knew there on the pebbles, I stood, winded and weeping
Just taken – nothing more to add to that
Jordan, it was laugher, laughter of you; that will always be my memory sweet laughter, laughter and the way you spoke my family name…
Teenagers, cycling across the Dales up country roads in the seventies sun wheels turning, chests burning on our way to Tan Hill Inn
Too young to drink then we’d sit in the garden catch our breath and if we’re lucky maybe the northern lights I’d take photographs thinking to myself one day I’ll bring my wife here one day I’ll bring my children if I have any and we’d cycle home
All the energy I had then all that drive to ride the Pennine Road on the longest and the shortest days sit by that fire, dripping dry seemed there could never be a time I couldn’t call my friends and ride up to Tan Hill Inn skidding home in the snow
I thought it all was endless it all seemed so endless then
Now my kids are grown my kids are having their own there’s no energy left not in these bones to cycle up those hills just to sit without drinking…
All this talk of cut cords, severed alliances assuming of an adultness of understanding a rationing of feeling where one side metes out their emotions only experiencing the right and sensible sensations
And so I forget to ask is it cold, where you are?
All this presumption of absolutes, burned bridges there being no way to return to stir this into a mess a wall of arbitrary time, slotted days upon weeks to hide the vision of what once shone so stellar
And so I forget to ask is it cold, where you are?
All this forward thinking, predictive dreaming pushing eyes and minds to see something not yet shown clawing the edges of a still concealed future an impatient Christmas morning of wild new opportunity
And so I forget to ask is it cold, where you are?
Selfishly distracted, by the glowing halo of tomorrow buoyed by a sense of feeling strong and free my mind gets wiped, all compassion corrupted when really I still care and will wonder about you always
Is it cold, where you are? and if it is, is there anything I can do?
If it’s cold where you are is there anything I can do?
Lit by the distant sun in a backyard beer-garden overlooking the meadow my swimming brain spins out through adventures of the past forgotten journeys by coach, by plane through unfamiliar landscapes to the desert in California
We rode the Greyhound between the sun-drenched cities your head lay on my lap and when we could tear our eyes from one-another we’d watch the world pass by in technicolour, all new
We stayed on Sunset Boulevard you lay naked on the hotel bed while I stared hard at maps and planned before turning my gaze to you we ran down Long Beach never questioning our love
This evening, I wonder if you will ever return to America will you share those moments with someone new can he afford to hire a car so you don’t have to ride the Greyhound stare out of the window laughing at the wind farm…
The Lighthouse 