A WESTERN SUN<\/strong><\/h3>\nI hear that song, still feel the heat of a western sun<\/p>\n
Those years ago but now \u2013\u00a0 and it\u2019s always now, in my head,<\/p>\n
Always the time I first heard it aged seventeen<\/p>\n
And my, those ten years just flew by, didn\u2019t they?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just when it was.<\/p>\n
I can see the blurred flag flapping in slow motion<\/p>\n
Snapping in the damp wind of my false memories<\/p>\n
Of long haired men marching to the war we despised<\/p>\n
But that was someone else\u2019s war ten years before,<\/p>\n
Something that was all in our minds<\/p>\n
As we wandered up Walcot Street to the Hat & Feathers,<\/p>\n
Leather jackets and silk scarves, the day of the festival<\/p>\n
A sweat salt tang stayed on our lips<\/p>\n
Our battle salve patchouli hazed our dreams<\/p>\n
That blurred afternoon and back then we dared to dream<\/p>\n
Not about BMWs and ISAs or chartered accountancy<\/p>\n
Or a thrilling carer in actuarial statistics and dear God<\/p>\n
If I\u2019d only known that the loose connections, the loops<\/p>\n
Of if-this-then-that in my head, the spurting synapses undammed<\/p>\n
By dope and cursed by my teachers at a country school<\/p>\n
Could have bought me half the grey stone town I grew up in<\/p>\n
By now. Probably. But stop. But stop.<\/p>\n
Never go down this road<\/p>\n
Where half the streetlights aren\u2019t working,<\/p>\n
Lit only by the dipped beam of my memory<\/p>\n
Coming from a car I haven\u2019t had for twenty years<\/p>\n
A faulty bulb flickering whenever I put the wipers on.<\/p>\n
You know that if you take this track you\u2019ll only get a hundred yards or so<\/p>\n
Until a cold girl in a warm car, silhouetted against the trees<\/p>\n
Lit like the backdrop of a play, so cold outside;<\/p>\n
The girl in the sheepskin coat will say<\/p>\n
\u2018What if there\u2019s nothing there, the other side of the gate?\u2019<\/p>\n
The second it appears in the headlights.<\/p>\n
Even then you felt her voice would hunt your dreams,<\/p>\n
Sniffing you out while you sleep, wherever you hide at night.<\/p>\n
But that flag, the flapping ripple of cloth,<\/p>\n
And the hair blown across her forehead and somewhere<\/p>\n
The taste of tears as well as the kiss still on her lips;<\/p>\n
The army coats and the smell of goats when her bag got rained on;<\/p>\n
The time she did, she really did tie red ribbons in her hair<\/p>\n
And small golden bells. They looked golden anyway,<\/p>\n
Borrowed from the mirror on her dresser,<\/p>\n
Bought from a headshop one Saturday afternoon in Bath.<\/p>\n
Can you believe those words, now?<\/p>\n
This long since Princess Margaret and her happy dusted chums<\/p>\n
Played with a restaurant and a farm to feed it, up on the Swindon road,<\/p>\n
The way Peter Starstedt said it then, just for a laugh, ah ha ha.<\/p>\n
Parsenn Sally. Later, in the eighties a waitress paused<\/p>\n
When a customer pushed his napkin to the floor,<\/p>\n
Measuring the length of her skirt as she stopped<\/p>\n
Looked to the audience, fifty or so of us willing<\/p>\n
To show the colour of our money,<\/p>\n
Waiting to see the colour of her underwear,<\/p>\n
A fiver on white, ten on black,<\/p>\n
Wild bets on something awful like cerise<\/p>\n
As she put a finger mocking to her lips, shook her head,<\/p>\n
Bent her knees a little, just to tease, then flexed her leg,<\/p>\n
Kicked the napkin under the nearest table<\/p>\n
To a round of applause.<\/p>\n
“Another bottle of fitou over here, if you would”<\/p>\n
The appreciative click of credit cards on glass tables.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd have one for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bath where Regency houses lured London workers with their siren song<\/p>\n
Bath where water streamed down Royal Crescent walls,<\/p>\n
The lead flashing long gone, during the war probably,<\/p>\n
When patriotic householders bore the loss not just of sons<\/p>\n
But irreplaceably the 1820s cast iron trellices, rococco awnings,<\/p>\n
Gates and railings cropped and sawn and smelted to beat the Hun,<\/p>\n
Our loss; as if cast iron Spitfires ever flew<\/p>\n
Or steel swallows ever perched in Larkhall Mansions.<\/p>\n
Scars from bomb splinters still pock the stonework near M&S,<\/p>\n
The slashed birthmark of our time<\/p>\n
Still there if you know where to look<\/p>\n
Past the ghosts of open markets, joss-sticks and motorcycles<\/p>\n
Cafes full of lean dogs and coke stoves,<\/p>\n
Not a baby buggy in sight.\u00a0\u00a0All of this emblazoned on our tattered flag.<\/p>\n
All of this our banner as we marched<\/p>\n
Under the stained pennants of our duvets towards now.<\/p>\n
Come the revolution in Walcot Street.<\/p>\n
Come the glorious day.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t see the bathroom showrooms coming.<\/p>\n
We thought it would turn out ok.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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