The room is silent

but I cannot help but hear the sound

of Billy Joel extolling the virtue of keeping faith,

the Piano Man with the tender voice that packed

several punches with each octave and tremble

on his lips, implores me to listen to the sound

of nothing there at all.

 

I head towards a home, one of many I have had

but one in which I didn’t appreciate till

I had been there a couple of years and the argument

I had one winter’s evening still pains me to recall.

Questioning my dad on why we left Birmingham

to come to a small town deep in the middle of Oxfordshire,

I felt adrift from civilisation and the music that I could

have heard, the friends I already had and the sound of silence

permeated through the stillness of the house long after

he had thrown his hands up in despair

at my ingratitude.

 

Then slowly something changed, me I guess,

I didn’t ask Bicester to fit in with me, I fitted in

with the town a bike ride from Oxford

and the sweet taste of perfumed girls

that suddenly became women before my eyes,

I threw myself into the aspects and life

of a world away from what I had left behind

and even found a way to be older than I was

in the company of Ms. Bonasweska

and find myself at a gig or two in London,

against the rules but that’s the problem

when you become self sufficient, and the thrill of being

on the back of a motorbike at fifteen

to see your band play in Milton Keynes.

 

I head back home, three parts to the day

and each one I look forward to,

like the first kiss from the girl you fancy at school

to the first real date in your young life

where you buy her a dinner, of sorts,

the memories will rekindle,

and spark like fireworks,

watched from the embankment of the railway

and with The Who

and the aural image of Supertramp in your ears

to block out the sound of the explosions,

 

I return home.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015