On-board Malaysia Airlines flight from KL to Mumbai — February 2018.
The plane hurtled down the runway.
Tipped, to fill the window with a sea of green, an endless landscape of pineapple trees.
Tipped again — her stomach rolled — an endless scape of sky.
It seemed less likely that a plane could disappear into a bright pineappled world than it had as they roared through the nothing night.
It’s the rhythm of the beautiful words breaking.
But you said there was a beauty in the broken
There was a beauty in the broken
You said there was a beauty in the broken
A beauty in the broken words.
The rhythm.
You said there was a beauty in the rhythm of the words
A rhythm to the breaking
A beauty in the breaking
You said there was a beauty to the breaking of the words.
Beauty in the breaking words.
One more, you said
That’s all I’ll ask of you
Once more, you said
I promise to be true.
One more, you said
My heart was stuck on you
Once more, you said
I wished it to be true.
One more, you said
As I joined my hands with you
Once more, you said
I’m sure this time it’s true.
One more, I said
That’s all I have for you
Once more, I said
Though I knew it wasn’t true.
One more, she said
That’s all I ask of you
Once more, she said
I promise to be true.
One more, I said
That’s all I’ll give to you
Once more, I said
Though I knew it wasn’t true.
One more, you said
My heart was stuck on you
Once more, you said
I wished it to be true.
One more, we said
As I joined my myself to you
Once more, we said
I’m sure this time it’s true.
One more, it said
As it beckoned out to you
Once more, it said
And showed you what was true.
One more, they say
Altogether as they sing
Once more, they say
For once is everything.
I think I heard the train pass again.
(as another train passes outside)
Edwardian castles
With their kings
And hearts.
Chimney pots turn their clay faces to bake beneath the sun
Roses
Trellised, roam free
Picket fences
Cricket fences
Here a flamingo might stroll
The air would taste of a cup of pimms and lemon
Diamonds sparkle
On the manicured lawns
Mirrors gleam
Through the windows
The air would taste of a cup of pimms and sour
A cup of pimms and sour
A cup of pimms and lemon
An Edwardian castle
Once an ordinary house
Now a home, for animals
In the windows
Clouds seem to break
Where pierced
And scatter
By the poles and wires
Zagged along the streets.
Strewn across the sky
And scatter.
A cup of pimms and lemon
Sweet
Twisted
A cup of pimms and sour
The air would taste of a cup of pimms and lemon.
The cat that beckoned from his high lattice
Sat guardian o’er t’all
Eyes bright
No tail in sight
Aloft atop the wall.
Now come with me
The creature said
And softly turned a smile
Then just as quick
As he appeared
He’d gone
That’s it
Goodbye.
That cat’s been gone awhile.
Just as
I seemed able to walk, as on Wattletree Road I walked,
Glimpsed myself — I, it could only be me —
Reflected in the glass of a window
Of what was once an ordinary house
Now a surgery, for animals
Yet
I could not walk
Could not be walking.
It’s kinda late-sixties orchestral folk rock with a sorta surf vibe, you know?
Magical: Day One 