Sheep Street never looked so good
as it did in the early May sun,
the spotlight from decades past
captured with almost boundless
enthusiasm from roof to roof
in which places from my childhood
have leaked away, have melted into nothing
more than history and tethered remains
of collective memory.
The record shop long gone,
Goble’s, along with Iain, vanished
into the ether, coffee shops by chain
replace the feel of something inward
and to be rejoiced
and as for the biggest killer
One of the great seats of learning may have been a few short miles away.
An eternity on a bike but on clear Oxfordshire days the journey was the best.
Past Wendlebury, past Stella’s house, a journey I undertook many times back and forth.
Bicester in the winter felt desolate, days when all you wanted to do was go into town,
Down Sheep Street and look in the record shop, spend hours looking at one creative album sleeve
As the man behind the counter played the same music over and over again.