Yet It Stands So Still

time is so relative

last week I was a child

a hundred years ago I had a job

and only yesterday

my baby boy got married

the days and weeks and months

and all the years of my life

they sometimes seem so

immediately distant

each hour or minute

seemingly happening right now

and so long ago

in my mind

that is so full of all this

now and then

the scent of first love

patchouli, musk, girl

fills my nostrils now

and I come and go there

all over again

I can remember the first kiss

from my forever love

still have the feel of it

the soft press of her lips on mine

I can still see

the rainbow gloop of childbirth

when my boy was born

my mother’s undeniable voice

still pierces my ears

though her face is slowly fading

to a pair of dead bright blue eyes

there is a rock pool

in the hills above Benidorm

where my father is still swimming

with his trunks around his knees

unencumbered by the embarrassment

which had burnished my face

as red as his hair

and all those dead and gone

friends and family

the crashed ones

and the pickled ones

the dropped ones

the ones who were taken

on the Liverpool pathway

all of them

all of these lost and loved

they are all still here

in me

they are all still

here and gone