I was at a funeral recently, a work colleague, a nice lady
Her father had passed away
I was surprised to learn that she was an only child
And that her Dad...her Dad was a 'steeplejack' of all things
Yea he used to climb up and repair church steeples or build church steeples, whatever steeplejacks do
I wondered amusingly Did he ever try and get her in on the trade
"C'mon up here Sarah, there's a great view from up here" He! He!"
Later on in the service one of his nephews got up to give the eulogy
He talked about what a special man he was
I thought to myself, You'd want to be a special man to be a steeplejack
Me! I get dizzy standing on a chair
You'd want to have your head ******* on the right way doing that job
One mistake and you're... you're history
I thought his poor wife must have been a nervous wreck waiting for him to come home
He'd lived into his nineties (90's)
His wife had died just a few years previously
He sounded like... like quite a character.

I was reminded then of an old school Pal of mine... Tom from primary school (kindergarten)
When we used live by the sea
Tom was a great swimmer he'd won loads of trophies
There was an outdoor swimming pool in our village
And you'd often see him heading up to the pool
He'd have his towel and togs under his arm
He used to walk on top of the sea wall when he'd be going up the village
And there was this part of the sea wall that was very high
There was about a 15 to 20 foot drop onto the road on one side
And an even bigger drop of 30 to 40 feet onto the rocks on the other side
And the width of the wall was just around a foot and had little ruts in it (uneven surface) that you could easily trip on if you weren't careful
And he used walk on this like a tightrope walker yea!
And we used to watch him in awe with our mouths wide open in amazement
Asking ourselves 'How could he do that ?
What the hell was going on in his head that he could do such a thing ?
If he fell he'd be killed outright or certainly crippled
And no one would ever say anything to him, they'd just say "Oh! That's just Tom"...
One day coming home from school he took me into the swimming pool
He knew all the people who worked there
On this day they were cleaning the pool and had emptied out all the water
So what does Tom do but go out onto the 'diving board ' and starts bouncing up and down on it
And there's a drop of 20 to 30 feet onto the hard cement of an empty swimming pool
If he fell he'd be breaking his neck or his legs
Crazy!
He came to our house one time, now there used to be this big rocky outcrop that used come right up to the back of our house
We used to call it 'the Cliff', it was made up of all these big rocks and loose slatey type rocks and sand
It was as high as the house itself
We were all soccer ⚽ mad in those days, we used run up the steps to the back garden to play (was on top of the cliff)
We'd be looking over at the chimneys on the house
Tom came visiting one day, when we went out the back and he seen the Cliff
He announced straightaway "I'm going to climb that"
We said "You're crazy!"
We left him there bemused and went off to play our game
About 30 minutes later Tom appears at the side of our soccer pitch having climbed up from below...
And he could hardly kick a football, he just wasn't interested in that... wasn't interested
Inside his head he had...he had his own way to go.

SNOW FALLS

She wakes to a morning
with no reason for living

cries in the mirror
to be forgiven.

Puts on her make-up
takes off her clothes

sits there & bleeds
until she can’t feel

the blood in her veins
...runs cold.

The razorblade
bleeds...bleeds.

The cat cries
to be fed.

The batteries in her Walkman
go dead.

The Rachmaninov stops.

A letter she will never read
drops on the Welcome mat.

A mobile rings & rings &...stops.

A member of a minor political party
looking for her vote

rings the doorbell twice
slips on the ice    &   ruins his coat.

Curses.

A man laughs at another man’s joke.
It’s a big laugh...he’s a big bloke.

Laughter invades the square.

There’s a chill in the air.

A friend calls for her
(to go on a blind date)  

...she doesn’t hear.

Snow...
...snow...
...snow falls.

There are moments in
my life that are
too wild and
beautiful to be
tamed or captured by
words or sentences.
Musical notes could
do a better job at
conveying the experience.
D minor
or C sharp major.

My mind replays
the moments,
alive with pentatonic scales
and the taste of homemade
apple cider, and pomegranate
security.
I smell the burning leaves of
late October, and feel
the smooth nose of my
childhood Appaloosa, her
dappled coat, and trusting eyes.

Sometimes the world, and
all its goodness
stupifies me, and leaves
my spirit rocking gently in
a cradle, where I know it's
all going to be okay.

the slow slide
down from the stars above. love,

it leaves so fast,
grows so quickly cold.

she had looked into the shark's dead eyes
and found the friend
that waits in silent shadows

that draw the dying
inside themselves and into

the lone, solitary ring
of the cold church bells song.

Sylvia stared with dead eyes
and rode the white horse of death into the fire.

One evening I sat down with my dinner to watch an episode of the original Star Trek series
With Captain Kirk, Spock and Bones, Dr.McCoy
But when I turned on the TV 'The Six Million Dollar Man came on
Obviously they'd shown all the episodes of Star Trek and were now starting to show The Six Million Dollar Man
Now we never watched The Six Million Dollar Man growing up, it was really for the younger generation, the younger kids
But I decided to watch it anyway as there was nothing else on
And it was OK, it was nicely done
I noticed the guest star in the episode was an actor named Gary Lockwood
Now I knew Gary Lockwood was famous for playing one of the astronauts in the movie '2001, A Space Odyssey '
He was also famous for appearing in the very second episode of the original Star Trek series (think it was the second)
It was a great episode, he gets zapped (electrocuted) by an alien entity
And then starts turning into this superhuman being with dangerous ESP powers
The Captain and his colleagues have to get rid of him before he grows too powerful
He's famously going to "squash them all like insects"
Now I also remembered seeing him in a movie once in the 70's
I had to look it up on his Wikipedia page
It was so long since I'd seen it
It was called "Model Shop"
It was a curious movie, kind of an art movie
It was like a postcard to Los Angeles and the late sixties
He was driving around Los Angeles in a small antique type motor car
He had quit his job and was about to be drafted into the army (to go and fight in Vietnam)
He was short of money, had girlfriend problems and had become fascinated by a mysterious French lady,
I looked up the movie on Wikipedia just out of curiosity, for nostalgia reasons I suppose
I noticed it was directed by a Frenchman named Jacques Demy
Now I never heard of Jacques Demy before
So I looked him up too just to see what kind of career he had and had he ever made any other movies
And yes, he was noted for several movies but especially for one in particular
One that was regarded as a classic
It was called "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"
Some people have called it the greatest musical ever made
It was a movie where strangely the dialogue was all sung
It was also the movie that made the French actress Catherine Deneuve a star
And the strange thing was, I'd never even heard of it before.
My interest was piqued so I looked up the movie and was blown away
I thought the French language would be a clunky language if sung
But here it's wonderful, it flows so beautifully and naturally
You quickly get used to the dialogue being sung
And it seems to heighten the emotions of what's being said
The story I suppose is about innocence and young love and then the world intruding
and upsetting everything
The movie was made in 1964 when a lot of movies were still being made in Black and white
But it was made in glaring colour, it's so lovely to look at
Even the wallpaper has a staring role.  
For me it was a magical movie experience, a delightful discovery
I've watched it several times since
It proved a pleasant distraction during the cold Winter months.

I sit and write because my hands still work and my mind still sharp
My brain and legs no longer communicate, my cane my new best friend
You see at age 22 you think you're bullet proof and don't think about tomorrows
You climb mountains with a hundred pounds on your back and your legs
do run for miles
Do I feel sorry for myself? No because I always remember the good times
I had and don't think about tomorrows
I sit here now a broken man, no more walking my dogs for me
My pain meds always close at hand taken with a cup of tea
I've lived a long life, longer than some and can still smile through the pain
There's many a lot worse of than me
So I say to all you young people who might read this don't think about tomorrow
No, think about 20 years or maybe 30, think of your body as a car engine
Abuse it now then next week maybe next year or even 30 years,
Like a badly serviced car engine something is going to break
I leave you with these few words, Live for today but live sensibly,
Abuse your body and for some tomorrow will never come