A social site for poets in Sydney.
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.
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