I always looked north, a force of habit I allowed myself

As I took shelter from the rain and driving incessant wind that hung over

The valley and clung like a finely woven tight spider’s web around my throat on the hill.

I never went to the other side of the town and looked south

Even though my oldest friend lived in that direction.

My heart was beyond the boundary of the city, a village in all but name

As the Cathedral grew even out of the densest mist coming off the rivers.

There were days when the spider’s web would not be as chocking,

Would somehow loosen when I met with some like-minded people

However the red light, the beacon that guided enemy aircraft

To destroy towns on the coast blinked its blurry, conjunctivitis diseased eye

And searched for me, probing with its anger and daring me to escape.

From time to time I took the train out of the city,

I headed north, Oxford, Via Basingstoke and Reading

Reading a paper all the way.

Birmingham via Bristol Temple Meads platform one,

Never took a step out of the station till I took in a Skyclad gig and

Froze on the station concourse waiting to get home

With just a T-shirt to keep out the Bristol air.

It was never the city’s fault, just mine as

I never got to grips with its rules, regulations, laws, by-laws, made up laws, decree,

Instructions to feel blessed to live in the shadow of the blinking red eye.

I left behind a few, nameless few who still I hold

Dear in my heart but they love that place with all of theirs.

I still feel the hot breath of the summer in that place

Dancing like a young virgin, happy, delirious with life

Not realising it was being led to the alter and sacrificed

By the machine.

The burning down of one of the shopping arcades which we witnessed

From outside The Butt of Ale, a pint glass still in our hands and tipping sloppily

As if in a meek attempt to help extinguish the flames.

The murder that happened that shook the city to its foundations

And me to my knees and belief, the gentle way of life

Captured in all its glory by harsh tongues and colonial like telegraph

Wires, speeding news from one end to the other in the blink of the eye.

I don’t miss you; I miss people with such intensity

That I think of them everyday

But I don’t miss you, you are easy to ignore…sometimes.

 

Ian D. Hall 2013.