So long gone

So long gone

It is strange to think of you without jewellery

It is in the box by the bed

As I walk I remember how hard it was

To begin to step away

The thought of you in one place

Un-moving

When we would own the world

With our stories,

The broken dreams

Fallen by the wayside

In the muddy yellow light of a night nurse

Tortured minds twisting the sisters of mercy

Into a bacchanalian orgy

The years it took to put the pieces back together

Stripping away, layer upon layer

Some wallpapers leave an impression

No matter how well they are steamed,

A good paint job can hide a multitude of sins

Evangelists can be found anywhere.

An old Ford Consul my father brought home

Seemed to melt in the rain

There was more plastic filler and old newspaper

With ‘you’ve never had it so good’ headlines

Than metal, under the paintwork

The engine still had a tickle in its throat

As we drove through the backcountry

Where the roads were built by Romans,

I guess we were thankful for that,

I could see the ground through the floor

The driver’s door came from a different car

It took a pull and a hitch to get it to close.

If I stand long enough in one place

I could be anywhere

Imagining life through your eyes

What you might see when the lights went out

London is a starstruck city

Even dirty streets have an old-world cache

The brightness can bring tears to my eyes.

So many young hopefuls pass this way

We would watch them come and go

While nightlife twinkled,

Street lights stretched forever

As contorted as the milky way

Distance can bring objectivity

But the truth is never as easy to define.

I walk alone but you are with me

I sleep by myself and yet you have

Just taken off your earrings and put them in a box

On a bedside table

A folded kimono in a drawer

Dried flowers, pressed between the pages

Of an old sketchbook

Sometimes it feels as though you are still here

Perhaps we can walk together in the morning.

London is such a mysterious town

To walk around by myself

It is too easy for me to miss the point

Of its existence

Don’t you think?