POETRY: PLACES

Amsterdam

I saw across a bridge in Amsterdam

A figure that I recognised

It was a brief view

In silhouette

A gift from the parting sun

It was the gait that spoke of identity

A very specific swing phrase

I was sitting on a bench next to the statue of Thorbecke

Considering his work on the revision of the constitution

In a glimpse my thoughts veered from political history to living on cheap red wine as a student.

Back in the nineteen eighties

Amsterdam seemed to a naive country boy

The utopian city

Freedom

Opportunity

Experience

Great people

Alive and vibrant

Empowering to a young man with dreams

A sense of fortuity

Of choice without historical stricture

I met the silhouette in my second year

Like no one else I had ever met

A complex character

With infinite wit and deeply held views

Steeped in sixties film culture

With magical guitar skills

And social magnetism

A great guy

But then he left

With no notice or reason

A great puzzle to us all

And then this glimpse

Forty years on

Tantalizingly close to an answer

I followed the figure

Along the streets of our shared past

Through Vondelpark

Across the Museumbrug

And suddenly he turned

His face was mine

Chasing my youth in midlife crisis

I had last found and seen in the look

The hope which was ultimately reimagined

Closure

My Lost Cat is a Hero in Space

Lived in Paris for a while. Soaked it up. Felt bohemian and alive. Montmatre of course where all the artists muse. In a strangely derivative way, I lived in a garret and invited a stray cat to teach me about life. Good times.

Then my cat left and it all changed.

I searched for ages along the cobbled streets. I was too inverted to shout her name but I whispered hard, Claudette, Claudette. Come back to me.

She never did.

J’etais tres malheureux

The barricades came up and the cheap red wine went down.

Some months later, emerging from the darkness, I stumbled to the café where I swept the floor and poured the early morning awakeners. A depiction of Claudette swam into view on the cramped inner pages of Le Figaro.

The first cat due to fly in space. The name was wrong of course (Felicette I hated) but that face I knew so well. Intelligent, kind and sort of dismissive of my attentions at times.

Avidly I read and memorised the schedule. Tomorrow was blast off. Sub-orbital mission to 154km.

Crossly proud, I listen on my tiny radio the next day. Not live coverage you understand but a brief mention on the news.

A success.

My lost cat had put her career before her family.

I later learned that the hero was required to give up her life to advance science. Sadly the autopsy revealed nothing of value.

60 years on, I am old but surprisingly pleased to hear that my cat, yes my cat, Claudette has been immortalised as a statute in Strasbourg, sitting on a globe gazing upwards

Perhaps she is still waiting for me to come down from my attic room and start my life.

Ionian Balm

Azure meets verdant cover

The sea beckons to sooth away all angst

The sounds of peace

Echo and embrace

All who will listen

Simplicity of kindness

Good food and wine

The evening light

Enratures the most weary

Meganisi Greek Island

Hardyness (Reconsidering Ethelberta)

A long walk over the Purbeck hills

Gives insight to scattered thoughts

A seemingly less read novel

Based on the same route

Is actually fully justified

The characters revel in the scenery

An appreciation of minutiae

With a fondness for the broader view

The smallest blue Adonis butterflies

And the highest chalk downs

Familiar and immortalized

The swirls of ink on the page

Wake from their darkness

And voice the picture

In vivid immediacy

Expectant walkers

Buoyed by faded classroom memories

Tread the canvas

Release the scent

And share the love