Times between night and mornin,
Just when the chill about sets in,
Limbs frantically search for that crumpled quilt
Increasing warmth and ahh sweet grogginess.

A dream floats in my blank sleep
You and me tootling along a forgotten, familiar street
In a battered old Hyundai Santro?? it is.
Twenty years of acquired cobwebs melt
Evoke fond memories and unexplored possibilities
Overlaid with a wild imagination, the images move in slow motion

Me driving, your gaze surveying the landscape
You are older and plumper, I have a beer belly and a bald patch
There is not much to say, or too much to say but no time.
Four Eyes frequently lock and search for something
Knowing it but daring not to say.

Your sultry liquid voice breaks into a song, an old Urdu ghazal,
Of obscure origin and meaning,
The notes glide and acquire shapes in your husky abused throat,
Silvery quicksilver, flowing, and always round  at the edges
Unfettered and undisturbed by the bumpy ride and noisy springs
Brings whole of creation in the Battered old Hyundai Santro Still.

The vocal vibrates and resonates in my bones and skull and in my soul
Stimulates humours I didn’t know exist
Eyes lock again, a mild smile is exchanged,
We understand each other
Know the limits and improbabilities
Its not going to be in this life time dear.

Let’s seal it with a kiss
An embrace exchanged over the gear levers and handbrakes
Oblivious to the barreling old Hyundai Santro
Your tiny ******* and Pantene scented hair
Your lips still perfect, soft, warm, moist and downy at the corners,.
Unfamiliar yet so familiar.

Low-lit along the coast
young boys play bones upon the stone, and the elders,
waiting for the sea, conceal their interest.
The waves are far enough to ignore
but the salt mist has lingered:
blurs the tracks about the strand made by creatures whose names you once knew;
lost now amongst the streaming lists and orchestral sounds that drown the young before bedtime.

for some time prophesy or tradition,
the journeys tracing symbols down to
the sepulchral cities that rust under water –

Sometimes bring droughts,
reveal spires and penthouses, weathervanes and aerials.
lose a notebook and die elderly gardening temples.

fear life in sustenance.

fear primordial words
that chime like glass honey traps
dull and shallow.

fear
the panoramic shots of cattle
, a great still herd shivering breakers of light,
the temporary herder, you weren’t permitted to see, chasing away baboons with long-ish strides behind you.
poetry is always chasing
and each step will always chase better,
transcribing the soughs of the meadow (or other inhuman acts)
to speak with running subtitles:
in the translation of a voice
to be some natural thing singing
like the humpback corrupting the grace of the older song
whilst tootling along the coast

If slow could show itself as being fast
the driver of this bus would still
come last.

And then we wonder why
productivity
once so high has gone into
decline,

it's down to bus drivers tootling along
and taking their time.

Almost to a man they don't give a ****
never a please or a thank you,
they
shunt you in to a forty foot coffin
and we're off in
what appears to be
a snails pace
it's no wonder they're laughing

There's a lot to be said
for closing your eyes and
staying in bed
but
not a lot of people say it
instead they'll pray
for Saturday
which'll be a long time coming
if it takes the bus.

To me there was never any drawback
it was just simply child's play
looking back down the old track
it was a typical British railway.

It was just brilliant in its heyday
chugging along with a smokestack
through tunnels and the odd archway
I can safely say I never looked back.

All those hard workers on the payroll
leaving memories along the track
spending all day shovelling coal
everything they wore and owned black.

Some days their breath dried and they cried
from the young lad to the station guard
but they all had something called pride
even though their memory's were all scarred.

The whistle could be heard "all aboard"
and off it would go chugging
the steam puffed and the engine roared
regardless of the carriages it was tugging.

Through every village an every vale
it relentlessly ploughed
along each track and each trail
leaving its white fluffy cloud.

Travelling along tootling down
from hill to hill down the track
from coast to each and every town
and I never looked back.

I like my style
a minute a mile
just
tootling along.

But
I'm jaded
faded
put in the shade
by the young dudes
it
eludes me why
this should be

I still like my style
though
because and only
because I am me.

Email
Gmail
Hotmail
what makes for a good male?

Just tootling along on the Central
Line
gone are the early day blues.


Not even thinking about anything
not trying to link in to some daydream
or muse.

The passengers now are a different kettle, if fish are so used to being used,
there is chatter and clatter and laughter, which comes at the right  time as I poodle along on this underground
which again is fine if you like it.

I find that I like it much better at this time
the time being going home time,
( you can't go wrong with a Sekonda on your wrist )

So what makes for a good male
when a good woman can make him
much better?

I'm only guessing at the ghosts of these questions that mist over my mind
now and then

But
ten out of ten for trying.