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This evening I was looking for a piano book for one of my offspring, when, instead, I came across an old school magazine. It contains a youthful poem of mine from my sixth form days. Once I finished cringing heartily at the heartfelt angst and self-importance of it, I started laughing. This is a classic piece of pompous crap poetry.

In fact, the difference between how bad it is, and how amazingly insightful I thought it was at the time, is so hilarious that I feel the need to share it. You are allowed laugh. Here goes (it’s quite long, I’m afraid – do skim over it):

 

Earth Shattering

Why is today merely an extension of yesterday,

Which, itself, was an unplanned afterthought

To its own yesterday?

Why is there always steely-grey relentless acid rain,

Which, drop by drop, dissolves my defences,

Making me remember, when I’m trying to forget?

 

Do you remember when each day was an adventure,

Shaped effortlessly, individually?

Remember our field: three orange triangular tents,

Long, yellowing, prickly grass, with angelic daisies,

Two gentle Jersey cows, with eyelashes?

It was three miles to the farmhouse.

 

One morning, you got up, wrote a note, and cycled to the farm to buy the milk.

You can’t have been gone long when we woke up.

It was a gorgeous day!

The smell of freshly cut grass drifted across from nearby fields.

A sky like the tinted ones on postcards smiled down on us,

And, in the distance, a patch of scarlet

Brightened the golden and green spheres

Of our patchwork quilt.

We made daisy chains for the cows

And waited for you, for the milk.

 

After an hour, we were beginning to be thirsty and irritable;

You’d probably stopped to swim, or to drink the milk, or simply to sit in a field, being.

Finally, someone cycled off to escort you back.

 

He was gone slightly too long.

And when he came back,

We didn’t dare ask,

But he told us, all the same .

 

Then everything was a mockery

Of itself. The childlike sky with its cotton-wool clouds

Closed in on us, chanting

‘I don’t care! I don’t care!’, laughing.

The smell of the grass grew nauseatingly sweet

Until it suffocated us. The Jersey cows

Were facists in their nonchalance.

And on the horizon, poppies were glaring blinding

Blood. All time was there

Time past, time to come.

The world stood still.

 

And still it stands. Although the summer’s past,

The weather less lethal

(Growing slowly, rather than destroying in a second)

Although I know that ‘life goes on’

And there’s a routine to be adhered to

Although I have officially ‘got over’ you;

There’ll always be a field

With daisies, cows and summer,

Where your friends will wait for the milk.

 

I hope the emotional impact of that will not affect readers too adversely! I used to write poetry all the time. I don’t any more, and now I know why. Anyone else?

This summer, we moved from a big rented house into one that is much smaller, but ours. Even though there’s less space, it feels much better being in a place that’s ours, and I love not having to worry about the odd handprint on a white wall, or be inspected by officious lettings agents on a regular basis.

Best of all, though, I get to look out of the window. As we’re on a hillside, there’s always something to see. Outside the window is a tiny train station with no ticket office and one platform, and a freezing August evening with torrential rain, three railway employees stoically had what must have been a long-planned barbecue in the car park. They huddled together, sheltering the barbecue from the weather with their bodies, and made themselves hot dogs. After a while they spotted James, my visiting brother John, and me watching them from our window, and raised a glass to us.

When we moved in, we had a good view of a warship where green screens were erected, partly to ensure that no houses like ours appear in the background of the film World War Z,  which they were filming there. In other words, Brad Pitt was in the area. Then he went home.

Straight after that, I got up early to work one morning and almost dropped my coffee when I looked out of the window and discovered that my normal view had been almost completely eclipsed by a gigantic cruise ship that had appeared overnight. I spent a long time with binoculars, watching people on the hundreds of decks. The holy grail was catching someone looking right back at me with their binoculars. It happened in the end.

I’m writing this now looking out of the window at station, harbour and town. There are lots of seagulls on a roof nearby, and a few pigeons fluttering around. Nothing much is happening. It is utterly hypnotic.