Funny to think of you gone

On a bright morning like this,

Crossing the Euston Road

With rolled sleeves,

Nothing to do;

10:12, on a Tuesday in spring.

Sky blue and dotted with clouds,

Cranes swinging

In construction dust

And breeze-blown blossoms.

Workers whistling in shiny yellow hats,

The city in full swing,

As I walk away from myself

In bright cars and mirrored glass,

Along streets like Paris,

Except it's London in spring.

Breathing, I go with

Warm lungs of idling taxis,

Past sour, piss-soaked alleys,

Rubbish truck fumes,

Walking, walking,

With you in my head,

Six months on - still dead.

Another face in the crowd,

Sun slipping behind a cloud.

As I mill amongst the living

In the bright plaza of the British Library,

Terra-cotta red against the blue,

And the barista at the stand

In the blue dungarees

And a polka dot scarf, hands

Me a heart drawn in foam.

Ah, love! I am so lost and alone.

Pick up, pick up,

The dead are on the phone.

But I'm mingling with the living,

Flocks of students, tourists,

The odd solitary businessman

In this amphitheatre of stone.

I watch a young man in a Picasso shirt

Serenading a woman in orange,

I sit beside Newton bent

Peering over his books,

I count my breaths,

Learning to breathe again,

I'm beginning anew,

Exorcising ghosts,

Reminding myself I’m alive,

With spring in my heels,

Hope in my head, I'm leaning out

For love and gratitude,

A flower bending

Towards the sun;

Yes, in my heart, spring has sprung!

John Coltrane plays

And the blossom falls,

April in Paris, London in Spring!

While the sun moves

In and out of clouds,

My mood goes with it.

I cross the Euston Road,

Fumes and traffic, to quiet

Judd Street, past the Ethiopian supermarket,

Then the Half Cup, men with flat caps,

Turkish coffee and dominos,

The Vietnamese nail bar,

The vegan cafe, now Linda's Flowers...

What news can I send you?

The world has turned strange

And sad, or maybe that's just me.

Katherine is alone,

She misses you more than most.

Henry is moving to Scotland,

It’s very sad.

We’re all escaping our commitments,

Like today I’m walking and walking

With nothing to do but feel

The breeze on my arm,

Longing in my limbs, rudderless

A woman in a yellow dress,

Two bike couriers stopped

Chatting, breathing over coffee,

Now a charity worker

Trying to get my attention.

Hello, hello, it's me.

Pick up, the skies are blue,

There's a whole world waiting

And so much to do.

What can I tell you?

I’m starting again,

Feeding the white dog,

Walking, naked as a notebook,

Useless as the plastic bottle in my hand.

I tie my shoelace, I tighten my belt.

Now a bus is stopping,

Now a car is honking,

Now a woman with a small

Dog in her hand, quivering,

My hand... too quivering

With coffee and too much nothing,

I'm walking to where?

Crossing Tavistock Place,

What's the French film

I wanted to see?

Or perhaps I’ll go to a gallery

To see Paul Klee or do nothing

But keep walking and

Buy a bright yellow notebook

To maybe make myself happy,

Momentarily, or perhaps

I will, I will, I will... Just be

Free of commitments, thoughts

Of running away

To do what? Take a leap...

Go to Barbados, to Greece!

But I'm here and the sky is blue

Some part of me says

There's so much to do,

Hello? Hello, it's me, again

Summer's turning back to spring

The birds all jump up and sing!

I want to love myself again,

So I skip across the street,

London, London is the place for me.

I keep happy thoughts

To a tourist's beat;

Barefoot Beatles crossing the road,

And didn't you see them?

But didn't hear a sound,

Collapsed hysterical amongst all

The other screaming bodies,

They called you George, the quiet one,

Amongst the others,

In a dormitory, four hundred miles

From home, nobody to come calling,

Still a child all alone,

Your mother and father

At the ski resort down the road...

A life spent

Searching for a way back home.

Keep on the pavement,

Avoid the cracks,

The sun is waxing and waning

Between buildings, scaffolds.

Noon waiting on the horizon,

Its black wings outstretched

Filling up with hollowness,

It's always one or the other

With a brain like this, who needs enemies?

Now a thick cloud covers the sun.

How to manage? Rationalise,

Hold fast. It will turn... that much we know,

But feel the

Black wings outstretched,

the talons sinking in,

So now, and now, and now

I'm back again, in

That dark room...

Warm, machines blinking,

Nurses huddled out of earshot.

Like cabin crew

In a stalling flight, I watched faces

For panic in that room,

That dark terminal, full of endings,

Watching the translucent tube exhume

Green bags of bile.

"You realise how ill she is,"

One nurse said to me,

I nodded but didn't really, but then knew

An end had come, a quiet rupture

Your eyes closed, white face,

Hands smaller but thicker

Than I recalled as I held one,

Your hand I held, hand...

Hand-written note on the bedside next day,

A shopping list of apples,

Chicken, mashed potatoes.

"Call Tom?”

No more, I confess a strange

Relief, even though too soon

To know the ending,

No more fears

Or pained expectations,

No more normalised despair,

As my therapist says,

You are the wound

From which all wounds bleed,

A tributary

That runs unseen

That ties me to you,

And you to me...

And now my son-

Yes, I have a son now too!

Change your mood,

Distract yourself;

Count all the green things you can

See, one, two, three,

A little green man walking

And the bright spring trees,

Now a woman in a green dress,

Hair blown by the breeze.

How despairing, you must have been,

So bad you confessed leaving

All three of us on the road side,

Threw yourself on the bonnet

Of the car begging not be left,

Until they put you away,

In a white room,

In a white building with green lawns,

The hospital Lucia Joyce

Died in the year you arrived,

King Lear scenes,

Electroshock despair,

Sweated draconian remedies

To seek a cause... 

But you were just lonely

And at war,

Another child victim of the Anglo norm,

The bloated coronation of expectation,

The corroded artefacts of golden

regimes,

Unspoken shame

And isolation,

A product of the lie

That children are resilient

To pain, they bounce, you know,

Instead, the truth, they mould

Then harden like clay,

Until we are dropped having

To piece ourselves together

Again and again.

Open the aperture, soften the focus,

Feel your hands warm in the sun,

The air on your arms,

Keep to the sunny side of the street,

These are the techniques.

You're no different, look at you

Passing in the mirrored glass;

Swimming languid

On the summer street, a free man

With his sleeves rolled

Breathing in the city heat.

Along Tavistock Place past

Gino's barber,

The Marquis Cornwallis,

The Chinese acupuncture,

The Italian cafe and

Happy folk drinking frappé,

The bright fruit stand,

With oranges, lemons and limes.

Yes, we’re living and you're gone,

Gone with your pink reading glasses,

And beige pastel pink

Wellington boots.

Gone with your bedside post-it notes,

Your powder blue hairbrush,

Gone in your everyday

Black clothes, your morning espresso

With one sweetener,

With your banana mashed

On white toast.

Gone with your body you never

Made peace with; its chronic inflammation,

Your irritable bowels

And endless prescriptions,

Naproxen, Ibuprofen, Benzedrine, Amitriptyline,

Gone with black coffee and Clozapine,

Gone with Prozac,

White wine,

Gone with your body and your mind,

Gone with black and white thinking,

Gone with life and death,

Gone with scorched earth realities,

Gone with mountains of delusions,

Of driving around after dark

Looking for bodies in the road,

Blue lights of your causing,

Looking for blood splats on door handles.

Gone with death,

Gone with love,

Gone all-encompassing, smothering life,

Gone with late-night calls

Of care and despair,

Gone with the fabric of all things,

Gone with nature, gone with nurture,

Gone with truth to leave

A world behind and awakening

Empty-hearted and helpless,

Gone with voice and face,

Each day going, a pyre in the darkness

Fading, your face expression

No longer visible, stop.

Where am I? Past the Horse Hospital,

The open door of the Friend At Hand;

Dark stooped silhouettes,

The comforting stench

Of polish on soured floors.

Ah… a long hesitation.

But the bright day waits;

I turn towards Russell Square

Happy, blinking in the sun,

Beneath the green, breathing trees,

International students, and

Au pairs with prams,

Toddlers running half naked

Through the fountains.

I loosen my thoughts, I look above

Which window was T.S. Eliot's ?

I think of Bloomsbury and bright red buses

And maybe I will take one,

Or maybe I'll keep walking

As I am, as morning turns to noon,

Not losing hope, catching my face

In mirrored glass,

No less happy, no less sad,

Just another still alive

And walking through the world

That you made.