Whatever happened to Anne from Cleveland?
Who you met on holiday with your parents
Just after your brother was born
And held your hand throughout that night
When all three of them nearly drowned?

Barbara who was the younger daughter
Of your old history teacher from High School
Who everybody disowned in the playground
After her brother got sent off for fighting
And cost the school the cup final.

Jude who you worked with at Woolworth’s
Who wouldn’t speak to you for two weeks
After you went to your Christmas do there
When her husband made a move on you
After 5 pints of lager and 3 whiskies

Mags who moved to Australia
When she hit 45 for a new start after her divorce
Or Rose who you went to IT Classes
Just after you both retired only to fuse her pc
Within ten minutes of your first lesson

Memories I still have of you
Closed like shut warehouses
Shaking your head furiously
With a animated anger
And sometimes with a muted tear

Sat there with a fountain pen
Looking every inch the thoughtful poet
Instead of a crossword scribbler
Lost in the floodlights of decades
Of a eventful life

As your pen crossed out people
You knew once upon a time
Like moments pulled out of sequence

Which you smile at quietly
And whisper thank you

Recalling their friendship

Carrying their dreams

Lost in sleeplessness memories
Tied in relationships

Stuffed with man-made threads
Dangling off jumpers
Carried off memories
Underlining your background
Whether at the end of summer

Or in the heart
Of a frantic Christmas.

Kissing the skies with a freshness
Each morning stroll to work
Across the end of summer
Carries a brisk walk across
Meadows half buried in mist
Agitated with the rising sunshine

Past swings covered in tears
From the freshness of the night air
And sunlight hovering
Over the top of the bowls club
Stretching slowly before
Eventually pulling itself upwards,

Disenchanted birds flying west
Then south with a weary cry
Admonished across the sky
Breathed from beyond the seasons
Wandered deep into a change
Around corners in murmured sunsets

Separating emotions around
The brushing of a few leafless trees
Standing at the edge of existence
Awakening different feelings
Eddied across my feet
Buried in yesterdays feelings.

EARLY AUTUMN AFFAIR
      (A homage to Hugo Williams)