This is one of the racier "Memories" poems by the great Barry Hodges, my alter ego.
It might well make you come involuntarily in your ******.

How happy was I once with the wind in my hair
Wandering o'er the dales with joyousness unmeasur'd,
In the sweet long passed innocent days of platonic love
When stolen gropes and kiss were to be treasured.

But all good and true things come to a sad close
And my poor first love lies in her grave so sorrowfully
Having been crushed to death by a runaway steamroller
Before I managed to go all the way quite thoroughly.

What a waste of delightful teenage flesh was that
Yet perhaps I had a narrow escape from the derangement
Which might have been mine had our trysting
Led to a semi-permanent matrimonial arrangement.

For I recall one afternoon in the old ABC cinema
In the delighful Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate,
Sitting next to my gorgeous love in the back row,
Exploring her not so very private parts on a hot date.

How I cursed the management's niggardly folly
In not showing a film with hot romantic blood
But saving pathetic pennies by putting on
Daffy ******* Duck and Elmer ******* Fudd.

But yet I perserved with my digital explorations
Unaware that the throbs my fingers felt were no dream
But darling Elsie laughing like a proverbial drain
At Daffy's hilarious anatine adventures on-screen.

'Twas then I began to wonder about the viscous liquid
I had hitherto imagined was Elsie's lovejuice flowing
(dear, dear reader, cease your perusal of my tale forthwith
if you are of a nervous disposition or prone to food up-throwing)*.

It was only a careful examination of my sopping knuckles
In the dimly lit gents after old Daffy's film was done and dusted
Which revealed that my dearly beloved had leaked
Big time out of both ends, leaving my fingers well encrusted.

O to think that, but for Daffy, I might have been lumbered
With a different kind of bird for whom double incontinence
Was a way of life (thus, the fatal steamroller she encountered
The very next day was a blessing from kindly Providence).

The Yorkshire Rose, elegantly perched on the bridge
This was not London, or the palace
nor Manchester, where Mancurians are free
nor Blackpool, where the beach swallows
Glasses, towels, mussels clinging to rocks
The Yorkshire rose, drawn upon the bridge
Bullet trains, leading distances
Almost unfathomable in this very spot
Harrogate, bath water
Spilling onto the street in natural sulphuric geysers
Burning
The Yorkshire Rose, fleeting in memory
In ghosts of the abbey nearby

1

At Lunch

West Midlands Wendy
dining out, alone
at St Peter’s on
their Saturday special
of salad and quiche.
Just a few hours
from the hotel weekend
(with a show), and you have to go
in half an hour’s time.
Page-boy cut
your hair once fair now grey,
you're slim, but slight
though pleasantly breasted,
pigeon-feet on the upper lip,
a thick gold band on those
careful hands steering knife and fork
to clean the plate of coleslaw.
Then, with darting eyes,
a few experimental words,
you’re gone. Oh, Wendy.
Such a solitary soul;
your shy smile haunts me still.

2

A Montepelier Moment

After tea at Betty’s
this woman of my heart,
fresh from a talk
to embroidery ladies,
and now replete
on jasmine tea
and a chocolate bombe,
braves the shop
with clothes of her dreams
hanging on rails  - a SALE no less.
Her eyes alight with possibility:
‘. . . there might be something.’

There is . . .

Gingerly from the curtained cubicle
this grey frock appears
wearing her beauty. Exactly.
Before the full-length mirror
we saw this slight miracle of linen,
scooped neck, gathered waist,
storm grey (with those necessary pockets
for phone and hanky). Perfect.
Just as she was then, as she is now;
this woman of my heart.


3

Before a Watercolour by Arthur Rackham

As individual as trees . . .
Perhaps we are
anthropomorphic -
as in Rackham’s painting
here on the gallery wall
two stand, proud and tall
against a fair-weather sky,
lately autumned in a
London park.
Leaves present,
but on the fall.

Mother and school-child,
he capped, she cloched, they
hurry below these trees
as others, be-pramed, dog-led,
unlingering, cross and pass
homeward; to spear a crumpet
or two ‘next an open fire,
a time before television’s
constant noise and flicker
took away the tick
from the parlour clock.


4

Before a Portrait of Suki by Tom Wood

There you were
as I remember
short red hair,
the forward-falling mop
over brow, not gaunt
like that unclothed self,
but rich in line of living
for the next word,
the better phrase,
an almost sentence
nearly right, a stanza
just just so, but . . .
without nakedness
(her daily dress)
this model shows
an arresting face,
deep eyes,
bold cheeks,
firm mouth.
A portrait stilled into life.

Cycling past buisness girls on his way through Camden town
between towering grey buildings and tourists that frown

The lights turns to red and like a one legged man at the curb
he drifts off to a land that to some, seems absurb

Where honey-eyed tales of piglet and Pooh
are driven  by toads tooting, ****- ****- poo

Peddling along the reeling, rolling,rambeling road some drunkard guy made
on famiular BBC air waves his voice often played

Through rich green ridings, wild moor and dales
2-50 stands the church clock that so sweetly never fails

Hatless on Ilkley, bathed and bathed in York
tea-time fancies at Harrogate, whilst watching like some Kes pearched hawk

Nodding and humming to  sounds of the Brighouse and Rastric bands
and still finding time to paddle a little,
                                                                                 on sun drenched Gigglewick sands

Red turns to green as he wobbles and peddles away down Boris's yellow brick road
To Settel, for supper with
                                                       Raty
                                                            ­         Mole
                                                            ­                         Badger
                                                                ­                                           and Toad

My Whippet gone,
now dust once again.

I've given him back,
from whence he came.

To run again
in cosmic fields,
waiting to be born.

*Shanzi is a syllabic poem in seven lines  4/5 5/4 4/4/5
Unrhymed
Lines 1 and 2   INTRODUCE the SUBJECT
Lines 3 and 4   AMPLIFY what is affected by the image/subject.
Line 5 thru 7    Focus on NEW SUBJECT that complements and provides a meditative conclusion.
Shanzi may be Titled

Harrogate, TN  November, 2014

harrogate in the rain.



cheap umbrella broke,

a delightful shade of pink,

abandoned.



abandoned the street

for the parlour, the crown.



mourned my shoes, wet



and ripping.



dripping

white nubuck.



watched the trees,

falling leaves.



good coffee

opposite

the pumproom.



harrogate.



sbm.