One time

One time

We lay naked on the grass

At midnight

Gazing up at the stars

Overlooked by windows

Curtained with chintz

A haze of marijuana and alcohol seeping out from

The bohemians on the corner

Maybe we were them

Memory is a fictitious affair

Lord knows I believed I met Bowie

At a party given by Arthur Brown

To celebrate his crazy world

But eventually, after the fire

And years of telling

Anybody who would listen

I remembered

It was a lad insane.

After a wild night,

Even the truth is a twisted concept,

Bolan was an arse though.

At least he was then

Perhaps I caught him in a bad place.

Unlike Eddie Grant,

Not on Electric Avenue

But in a green room

At a gig in Oxford

We shared a trough

Chatted as we peed

A really sweet guy

With a nice line in anecdotes.

There was a time when we could

Sleep outside the whole night through

And wake up with the songbirds

Questioning our appearance.

So different now

With a tall bamboo hedge

Blocking out

Any overlook

As I sit beneath an umbrella

Embracing the shade

Fully aware

Of the twitching curtain

From the house next door.

Protecting my privacy,

As if I had something

Worth seeing

When gone are those days.

We must have been a pretty sight

The pair of us

And yet

In many ways, too naive

To make anything of it

Not even a spectacle.