(I posted this some days ago - however among my chums in 'ull (and on fb) a controversy over whether it is two poems and the second half does not belong here ensued, so I removed it - here it is in its entirety - I have a truncated version as per the critics' suggestions but hey ho)   :) 

 

When Julie Christie steps from Ormondroyd’s lorry

Swinging her hair and handbag carefree

Down along Bradford streets

And on the sound track

A flute plays happy jazzy music,

That’s how I want to feel.

 

I am tired, nowhere to sleep,

A lift has dropped me

In some cold Midlands town

Wolverhampton perhaps?

Redditch or Stoke?

 

It’s dark

It’s raining

I need a smoke

And money for a drink

A friend to phone and ask,

“Can you come and pick me up?

I’ve had a lousy day

But I’m here at last.”

 

But I have no friend

No cigarettes

Empty pockets

A meat and potato pie

In a soggy takeaway box.

 

I only wanted love

To live in it

To give it

Get a little back

Skipping down derelict streets

Stepping over pavement weeds

Like Julie Christie when she changed the world

Knowing that you were mine

And I was yours

Making it all alright.

 

Laying together

Warm against winter

Washing my face with my lover’s night breath

Wondering at her night sighs

Her night moans and night giggles

As the cinema inside her sleeping head

Plays movie reels I’ll never see

Trapped inside her memory.

 

Ah but the pains

We inflicted ran too deep

As we broke our nails, our hearts,

Reaming out the rubble tunnel

Of self interest and expectation

Blocking the light

From the high and holy land

Of the dreamscape we created

You, me, kids,

Family

 

How did it end like this?

No warmth

A sour kiss

I called her bitch

She called me bastard

It was not meant to be like this.

 

We broke up because we chose love?

We should have embraced indifference

A casual coupling and easy uncoupling

 

I tried not to hurt her

She tried not to hurt me

But we were outgunned.

 

God may forgive us

For the harm we did

In saving ourselves

From the drowning claws of one another…

 

We will never forgive each other.