The Things I Leave behind.

The Things I leave Behind

(for the Scottish Poets)

I saw you dressed like a Matisse

In the rain on Easter Road, all passion

And words, all beauty-smudged mascara.

I saw you in a cage

Restless, imprisoned

Your tattered soul

Howling at a ragged moon.

I saw you with your typewriters

In the shadows of Back Stowell Street

Your sister’s eyes matched yours.

I saw you lost on Leith Walk

Hailing a cab to take you back

To the land of punsets.

I saw you first walking across a room,

A room of then strangers

And I wanted to ask you something.

I don’t remember what it was.

I remember a flat

You showed me your bed

There was hesitation on my part

And the chance was lost.

I saw you sat at a bar

With fiddle music and poetry

You introduced me to your lover

But not your girlfriend.

I saw you huddled in a corner

Smoking, all those years ago

And didn’t crack your accent

For years.

You left your hat in my flat

After we were careless with our bodies.

I never got to say much after that.

We drank talisker until you couldn’t stand

And that was our last night together or our first;

The circumstances evade memory.

 You showed me a room full of books

And salvaged leather, your hands had

Worked for a long time. You are made

Of forthrighteousness and long memory.

You tilted your body in my direction

And then left, returning later, but only once

To see if you’d left anything of me behind?

I saw you crouched on a step

And pissed on a stage.

Tiny as a teardrop’s teardrop

Before joy engulfed you.

I saw you clutching wine

You sidestepped my questions

But I already guessed where your heart

Was gripped.

On our first meeting

The first thing you said was a lie

And as it happens so was the last.

We exchanged menthol cigarettes for a while

And got drunk too often not to become Eskimo twins.

I went to your flat and your advances were obvious

I ran from you because I knew I would lose myself in you.

And I did. It has taken many years to find true North.

We were like two classic cars

In a race towards that cliff

Firebird and Cadillac.

Talking to you at Stanza

You were blunt and I disliked you

For not being as honest as you pretended.

When you walked into the reading

Everyone turned into lotharios.

You walked straight up to me,

Kissed me and held me long enough.

That photograph of you

Standing in a doorway

In another decade. I could see why.

We were unlikely

Rich and poor

Happy and Sad

The unlikely is always most likely.

You were someone else’s

And still are. But we laughed a lot

And you linked my arm because you knew

I needed some sort of love.

There was some talk of God

But your kindness couldn’t be lost

Behind something as general as that.

You were like the brother I lost

And the brother I found.

I see you riding your bike

Into the darkness. I would buy you light

If I could.

You sent me a video

Of you dancing I have no idea why

We had a daughter together.

Our kisses broke my lip

Blood tied us and separated us.

We attract crazy people whenever we smoke.

You are the gentlest person I have ever met

How did you survive for so long

And not become cruel?

You cooked me a meal,

Undressed and later

Cut your wrists for him

But I took you to hospital.

You were always hidden, I didn’t take the time

To find out why or from what.

Thinking too much is your forte

Intensity is your shield.

A calamitous combination.

I watched your back breathing on a campsite

The stars were misaligned, I was drunk

And you were waiting.

You were so damaged,

I should not have tried to fix you

I knew when I did, you would leave.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you

And so I do nothing.

You were older than you looked

And the sweetest, gentlest waitress, poetry

Could have ever written.

We slept together I think it was Autumn,

Before you told me you had slept

With someone else and realisation

Followed like Winter.

You hurt me but didn’t notice

I expect you do that a lot.

But then I never said.

You offered to take me urban fox hunting

I declined but the offer was genuinely warm.

You are blessed with grace.

With you I got so lost

But now I know where I am

And where I am going.

You wore an antique fox stole

For coffee on Easter Road

I liked you for being unafraid

And beautiful.

Never knew what to make of you

Possibly a paper hat or a bird.

Not a poem.

These are the things I leave behind.

Which are never left behind

Your faces in a room looking

At a face on a stage.

just

Words on a page.

(a poem of observations on poets who shall remain anonymous but you can have fun trying to spot yourself in here or speculate who they are about or drive yourself insane by imagining they are all about you. Each bit is about a different person. )