No Fit State

Our tiny bikes and disobedient souls

carried us there, Mark and me, along

narrow, winding lanes beyond the town

where the trees on either side joined hands

to form a tunnel like a playground game

and the steep inclines that made us puff

but oh, the thrill of zooming down again

a roller coaster in our childish minds

Deep in the woods we’d ditch the bikes

at the special place we’d found before

with abandoned machines for us to climb

and ponds of stagnant water, dark as tea

where dreadful life skulked beneath the scum

The pang of fear running into a gang of bigger kids

smoking hollow twigs. They showed us how

and we vowed we’d bring matches along next time

As the shadows lengthened, we started back

the exhilaration of the day remained

as we flew fearlessly down the endless lanes

And so long as we made it back home for tea

no questions were asked, our secret safe

no grazed knees or bumped heads to explain

Yes, we got away with it again and again

venturing farther than anyone ever knew

along undulating country lanes, where in a decade’s time

Mark would die one night on a motorbike

You’ve gone, old friend — slipped out the back door without so much as a bark. Typical. Always chasing something I couldn’t see.

I keep expecting the thump of your tail on the floorboards, the soft whine at the door when the wind turns mean. But the house sits quiet now, like it’s holding its breath.

I took your collar down today. Gave it a shake. It still smells of rain and river mud and all the places you dragged me when I thought I was walking you.

Out in the yard the grass has grown long, as if waiting for you to flatten it again with that lazy afternoon sprawl you perfected.

I’m sat in this restaurant, trying to look smooth, cool, mysterious — like a man who definitely did not sink eight pints of lager and a vindaloo that could strip paint off a battleship the night before.

She’s gorgeous. I’m sweating. Not romantically — more in a “my internal organs are staging a coup” sort of way.

I lean in to say hello and realise, too late, that my breath could melt the varnish off the table. She flinches. I pretend not to notice. I blame the lighting. Or the acoustics. Or gravity.

Then it happens — the rumble. Deep. Ancient. Like a tectonic plate shifting under my chair. I pray it’s just a warning shot. A diplomatic gesture. A ceasefire. But no. My stomach is a war zone and the enemy has breached the perimeter.

I try to hold it in — clench every muscle known to medical science — but the vindaloo has other plans. It escapes. Quietly. Stealthily. Like a ninja with digestive issues.

She pauses mid‑sentence. Looks at me. Looks at the air. Looks at me again. I consider blaming the chair. Or the waiter. Or a passing ghost. But the truth hangs there like a guilty cloud.

Still, she smiles. A real smile. Not a polite one. Not a “God help me” one. A proper, warm, human smile.

The news arrives the way all endings do: not with a crash, but in a room too bright, where someone trained to sound detached and kind lays out your future in diminishing lines. You nod, as if agreeing to a bill, though something in you stiffens at the sight of time made small — a parcel you must sign before they let you leave into the light.

Outside, the world continues its pretence: the buses heave, the schoolkids shout and shove, the shops arrange their pointless little wares. It’s almost funny how the ordinary keeps grinding on, indifferent to the fact that you have just been shown the edge of love, of breath, of all the days you thought were yours, now counted, boxed, and labelled temporary.

And walking home, you feel the narrowing — a pressure in the chest, a thinning air. Not panic, not quite grief, but something close to recognition: that the life you lived was always heading here, and only now admits it. Winter’s logic everywhere: the hedges stripped, the sky a closing fist, the cold rehearsing what it’s always known.

Winter popped round this morning, hands in pockets, whistling frost. Said he’d pencilled me in for later, nothing urgent, nothing lost.

I offered him tea. He declined. Said he had miles of roofs to ice, gardens to tuck in for the night, and a few hearts to chill for good measure. (“Occupational hazard,” he shrugged.)

I asked if I could reschedule. He laughed — not unkindly — and tapped his watch, the way doctors do when they’ve run out of metaphors.

So I walked him to the door, feeling oddly polite about it all. After all, resisting winter is like arguing with gravity: you can try, but you’ll look silly.

Winter rang this morning — said he was on his way down the coast, slow as a tired tide. Told me not to fuss. Told me no one gets out of this season without a bit of weather.

I made coffee, watched the kettle steam like an old man thinking. Funny how you live half your life believing the road goes on forever, until someone in a white coat draws a line across it and calls it a prognosis.

Still, I stepped outside, felt the cold bite the air clean. A bus went past — too fast, as buses do — and I thought, well, there are worse ways to go than being surprised by your own ending.

Winter doesn’t lie. He just turns up, hands in pockets, saying nothing personal, mate — just the way things are.

How fickle is the human heart? Well, It can stop dead for a start, or fibrillate, Take the rap for all kinds of emotional state, And if you pluck it out, put it on a plate, It’s not worth the cost of a chunk of steak.

‘Cause this pound of gristle we all need to function Simply ain’t fit for human consumption, And that’s why even the heart of a prince Holds far less appeal than a cheap plate of mince

(Although I suppose a prince might order a waiter To go and fetch him the heart of a traitor).

This Spring, we were like two shots of Sambuca, when the dark meets the light, in equal measure.

Everyone knows you can't see-saw alone & when one side rides high, the other comes down.

So together we developed a balancing act: I'd push myself forward, while you had to pull back.

But our playground was suddenly thrown into shadow. The temperature dropped; we both froze to the marrow

& when you jumped, I got dumped hard on the ground — found I couldn't get back up without you around.

Then a giant's foot fell on the end where you'd been, flinging me way off my face yet again.

A swashbuckling star of the stage and screen

A true hellraiser who stole every scene

A six-foot-two man-god with bright golden hair

Proud to be Irish but wasn’t born there

Claimed he could recite all Shakespeare’s sonnets

(Some of his boasts were not strictly honest)

Had homes in London, Dublin and Paris

Liked to go drinking with Burton and Harris

Wasn’t a Christian but rated Our Saviour

Got famous playing Lawrence of Arabia

Met Siân Phillips, his wife, at drama school

FAILURE is a faithful friend:     it follows like a flop-eared hound so close at heel, it trips you up     and throws you on the ground. It curls beside you as you sleep, it joins you in the shower, alert for any sign you’re weak,    every day, every minute, every hour.

It winds its way inside your head    and your thoughts as they unfold. It turns up at your birthday bash    and tells you “You’re too old

ever to amount to anything now!”    and scoffs “You've had your chance" And if that isn’t bad enough    it does a little dance

One day I noticed your chops had turned grey   a bit like mine when I forget to shave Sharing this space but our time's out of kilt   you’ve lapped up the years like some milk that I spilt

I’ll always be your constant companion   but I dread losing you more than just about anyone and when others remark on how much you've aged   silently inside I feel enraged

The thought of not having you around’s unbearable   your collar and lead by no other dog wearable I'll evermore be walking alone in the rain   your ball in my pocket, around the park again

Self-hatred is a cancer that can eat you so much easier to condemn the world for not meeting your high expectations than to forgive yourself for not living up to the expectations of others

All the opportunities you've blown or for some reason never came your way the people you've let down, relationships you gave up on, or that gave up on you the countless social gaffes that make you cringe even as you think about them now

The many times your welcome was outworn Part of you that's relieved when someone dies because they knew your failings far too well 

Translucence is the perfect compromise      of light: the bouncer at the nightclub door who lets some through and turns the rest away      all beneath a leering, candlewax moon

Inside, a mirror ball splinters the light      shards of colour through a fog of dry ice glance off the sequins and glitter of dancers      ecstatic visions that wear off too soon

There was no rain the day after you left no clouds, nor sun to decorate the sky no wind to comb the branches of the trees that bore no fruit, nor blossom, scent or leaves

And as I lay in bed awake that night I heard a gentle tap against my window I drew the curtain back and there I saw nothing but a single blood-red rose

And I remembered how you used to say to cut them back in winter and there'd be a heavenly display when summer came and that there was no cause to feel afraid

Divine Eos, gatekeeper of the dawn, her heart to youthful Tithonus had sworn, but fearing her lover must one day die, begged Zeus to grant him immortality,

and this he did, but through haste, or for fun, forgot to make him eternally young, so Tithonus grew old but wouldn't die, becoming more feeble each passing day,

until Eos, grown tired of his lack of ardor, suddenly turned him into a cicada. And now, although summer and youth are gone, evermore shall I hear the grasshopper's song:

A strange thing happened in London today Big Ben chimed a full thirteen times resulting in chaos at Trafalgar Square with the coming-to-life of the lions

One of them climbed Nelson’s Column another ran off down The Strand one went shopping in Carnaby Street and then joined a rock and roll band

But the fourth lion had other ideas about what it wanted to do catching a bus up to Regents Park and the allure of London Zoo