I miss you, gentle man of Wales

I miss you, and the language we spoke together, the language of us

Our language

I miss: US

 

 

I know that I write about everything, and everyone other than you. But that is  because I find writing about you, and how things were between us, far too difficult a thing to do. When you died, I went into a state of shock that lasted years. Not just because you died, but because of the traumatic experiences that happened at that time, with your grand daughter, and her boyfriend, whom you had assured me were 'lovely people'!

Flight or Fight? Or Flight in Fright...

I went running off to Florence six months after you died, thinking I was fine, when all I was doing was escaping, taking refuge in the warmth of the Renaissance. Trying to compensate. Making up for the loss of you. Stepping into Paintings. Getting lost in Marble Cloud. Trying to feel the leaves of Prima Vera under my bare feet, and  fly on Botticellian wings.Even now, when I think of you, I force myself to focus on something other than you.For you really were my North, my South, my East and my West, and the Clocks Really did Stop, and the Telephones really were Cut Off, the Stars refused to Shine, and the Sun Closed Down.

 

I miss your jovial "Hello Darling" in the morning

Your gregarious personality, and flamboyant style

They way you always used to start my day

By telling me which direction the wind was blowing from

The direction the clouds were moving in

The names of all the clouds in the sky that morning

The names of the various types of vapour trails the planes left

The types of planes, and other winged things that inhabited the skies

You were fascinated by: Sea and Sky Scapes, Art,

Bridges, History, the Second World War in particular

Churchill, Dunkirk,  the Normandy Landings

and, Le Cote du Opal, et Moules Marrinier

You suffered from francophilia, and I  was, and still am an Italophant

France has never had the ability to seduce me, in the way Italia does

We never made it to Greece, or Venice, we were planning that trip when you became ill

You wanted to stay at the Gritti Palace, and I, at the Pensione Accademia

In the end we compromised, on the Pallazo Barbarrigo, but it wasn't to be

You wanted to kiss me, at sunset, under Contino's Ponte dei Sospiri

The Bridge of Sighs, that we be Granted Everlasting Bliss, I Wish you That

I remember Le Touquet, and how we got stranded there

In torrential rains, that lashed France and the UK for most of July

And how on the way back, in our tiny eight seater plane

on Sky South, headed towards Shoreham airport on the south coast

We almost got lost in the clouds, just the two of us

Just us up there,  with the pilot, the three of us, looking for a break in the cloud

I remember becoming angry with you, and  the pilot, and saying, "This was your bloody fault"

"I told you, and the pilot it was a mistake to take off in this weather"

and you said "If were going to go down Darling, we may as well go as Friends" and you kissed me,

and said: "For God's Sake Shut Up Woman"

All UK airports had closed down, we had to return to Le Touquet

Blazed a trail up to Lille, by Peugeot, fighting all the way, and Eurostarred it back to Waterloo

And ended up spending the night at the RAC Club, dining  in art deco style

on The Mall, before heading down to our home, on the south coast

We always ended up somewhere we hadn't banked on ending up

Meeting people we hadn't banked on meeting

Staying somewhere we hadnt banked on staying

You with your Jameson, and me sipping my Dom Perignon

Laughing on our misadventures, and making light of it all

Fighting was always exciting with you, we would fire words back and forth

And after we'd insulted one another into the next world, we'd start to laugh like fools

Then we'd sit on our purple Kandinsky sofa,  arms around eachother, and stare into the gorgeous fake flames of the gas fire,  as they danced, lulling us, into a poetic trance,

where the conversation would toe and fro, between: art, poetry, litrature, science,religion, language, love, travel, and everything else in the wide world, soto il sole, and other suns too

And then somewhere towards mezzanotte, the conversation would become poetry

We both preferred fake flame, to real flame, neither of us liked getting our hands dirty

Somehow the flames are different, from a real fire, softer, mellifluous, of a gentler calibre

I have since graduated to real flame, but I still get lost in the other, and look for you there

And although we both loved flowers, and nature, we used plastic ones in the house

So as we didn't have to water the things, and worry about them all the time

I could go on and on writing about you: ad infinitum, ad nauseum

About how you were my best friend in the whole wide world

And how much I enjoyed your company, how much you meant to me

Architect and Royal Engineer, of Suspension Bridges and Dams

How we could spend not just days, but months in eachother's company

And never run dry of either: conversation, laughs, or poetry

 

I remember you, sitting upon the white verandah, smoking your cigar,  in your pink, yellow and green stripped shit,  your black tie, and your white panama hat

 

You used to say that we were like the Magpies

That hung out in the Magnolia tree in the garden

They mated for life

There was no one else for you

And there was no one else for me

In fact there was no one else but you!

You'd been bullied all your life, you said; but with me you were free, free to be yourself. 

 

We were so comfortable in our togetherness, that space danced between us, like a warm, Spring breeze: you had your own set of friends, and I mine, you had your other life, in Avignon, with Santa Maria, and I had my San Antonio,  my poetic, and artistic friends, your with your Lady SoandSo, and Lord WhatEverWasHisNameNow, and the ambassador of this country or that,

 

But in the end, it was you and it was me, and the poetry we made together, that really rhymed, we rhymed with one another....

 

Rousseau and La Haye remembered

 

and,  it was you  that  claimed that the Kurhaus was a 'Giant Victorian Monstrosity' of a building, and that it reminded you of a 'Giant Frog, Waiting to Leap'

 

Where are you now Paul?

 

You were the last of the gentlemen of the Age of Chivalry,King Arthur, and the Knights of the Roundtable

 

A breed long since disappeared

 

Where the sweet fuck are you Darling?

 

If only I could hear your voice once more saying: "Cup of Tea Darling?"

 

Darling was a word that was never far from either of our lips

 

We used it all the time, and we loved saying it, and hearing it

 

Darling this

 

Darling that

 

and, Darling the fucking other

 

Our cup ranneth over with: Love

 

I still carry your compass with me wherever I go, that I may find: my North, my South, my East, my West

 

When you learned that you were going to leave this mortal coil, you were not afraid, and you said that if there was life after death, that you'd write and let me know

 

Or send me some sign, or other

 

I'm still here, and I'm still waiting to hear from you, Paul.