recalling the view from old windows
the first view that I remember has
a twisted driveway and trees and loganberries
water in the distance
looking out on what passed for the physical world
when I was grasping all the ignorance and naivety
I could muster
learning some of the lessons that would shape me
the 1970s I lived in didn’t look like it does now
with all those moustaches and discos
and blurry TV shows
it was a simpler time of summercricket
and winterfootball and reading sci-fi
the sources of this or that pecadillo
preference or prejudice
now buried too deep to stumble across
in these elder times they must appear
by chance
in the crook of a sentence
in the grooves of a dream
in the twirl of a melody
(this melody appears to be playing
on a late 1970s synthesiser line)
the view from old windows
when I was becoming –
is it only a self-concious illusion
that i seem to recognise myself at 12
through the memory haze
seeing clearly that i was daft as a brush
and at the time knew myself not at all
but then i guess i knew myself better then
than at 30
or 40
I tried out many things
my share of dead-ends
gazed longingly out of many windows
querying my fare and that of the world around me
mulling over destiny and destinations
dealing out yet another hand of solitaire
as if to read my life by the cards
looking for faces in the moon and symbols in the stars
or
indeed
seeking myself
as a figure in the landscape
in a view in an old window
thesilverpepperofthestars 