on the 25th August 1981 two young, gawky people, who were very much youngly in love, got married gawky in Leicester Registry Office after having just met and romanced together during the three months previously; roll-of-eyes and awkward were the elders and war-survivors “act yer bloody age!”, but we knew we were different, even if we didn’t really know how, so we did it all differently, although we still didn’t really know what made it different; naïveté has kept us together even when we were sure we knew what we were doing; coming up to 35 years together, we are not sure how it happens; but it has, and it does, and it continues to find ever-new waves
in the three months up to our marriage we listened quietly to the few cassette tapes we had to play on the tape machine we owned: UB40’s ‘Signing Off’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Desire’; here are most of the UB40 pieces tracking our love and environment growing up in Leicester – something I’d like to share with the world, if I might not be too naïve – (‘Desire’ will have to wait, plenty of time …),
________\\~~~ “C&M” ~~~//___________________________
seven floors up
with irritated eyes
I smelt the neck
of a walk home
and the hibiscrub
of a day’s work
on the wards
we walked the streets of redbrick and
polished-brick highlight
to the cornershop hand in hand
the quest:
a slim bar of Bournville dark
to share
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“King …”
hand in hand across
the wide-open-green park
the evening colours
of cars coming home
to park and the sun
through the poplars and elms
at the edges
“… where are your people now?”
________\\~~~ “C&M” ~~~//___________________________
how high
can plethora mount
and bridge the shop front
door?
blue writing
on white, will we find what we
look for in there, shall we go in or wait
now we
know
where to find it? dust in the streets
and alleys blows against
our ankles
________\\~~~ “C&M” ~~~//___________________________
public benches
amid municipal plants
waiting
before
the long windows high-
enough
to reflect only the sky
while
allaround people and
printed
pattern whirl and blur
in stop-
motion agony of choice and deliverance
________\\~~~ “C&M” ~~~//___________________________
at the bridge
we stood by a bridge
and smelt the weedy scent
of the unspoilt waste ground
and looked for miles around
at the skyline
of the evenings
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(I Think It’s Going to Rain Today)
from
the tight-buttoned strength
of the nurse’s uniform
to
the swirl and fall of the
cheesecloth Indian dress
bell-tinkling blue and
bare tanned feet
in Leicester market
________\\~~~ “C&M” ~~~//___________________________
we
come alive in the evening
after the work is done
and the shops have closed
and while the cars queue home
walk
up the long long road rising
pleasantly to the mauve sunset
and the motorways reaching
in all direction
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in the university library
Jung’s synchronicity opened
deep through the pages to Dali’s
paranoiac criticism opening the eye
to Blofeld’s lone hymning of the goddess Tara
beguiled by Belmer’s illustrations –
the working through of karma?
all while the plants outside wafted their spore
through the high open windows
which caught behind my glasses as the sun
started its purple descent
when I could renew the strange mauve relief of
this burgundy-gritty encounter
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birches planted perfect in little squares
hand by step
scent by skin
high-wall factories standing silent with buddleia
Augustine by Anne
blue-petal by blush
the earth smell of vegetables before the riot of fabric
undercover from the evening
starch by wind-chime
logic by naïveté
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spilled out of the nurses’
quarters early in the morning
by some fire alarm
we stood by the bus stops
on the edge of the park
so quick I’d left my glasses
“early shift?” said the ‘shit,
it is a policeman’ when close
enough, “uh, yeah” … “yeah”
while I wondered where we’d live
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from seven floors up
down through the
terraced streets we
approached the park
hand in hand
and if
you look carefully now
we still stroll there
________\\~~~ “C&M” ~~~//___________________________
mlewisredford 