[NetBehaviour] Ravenoaks

[Simon Mclennan]

Ravenoaks
How it felt
The slate walls
The beehives
The wilting snapdragons
The foxgloves
The how it felt
Opposite Howtown
The how of it
The lake so soft
The drops of pearl
The front upstairs seat of the probably green bus
The lino-cut afternoons
The swan print
The brown lino tile
The grapevine with tiny green grapes
The running past the windows
The small flat
In the servants quarters
The holiday flats
The empty flats
The cattle grid
The bus driver stopped at the gate
The beside the lake
The brambles smell
The playing by the boathouse
The sleek wooden yachts moored out some feet from the shore of pebbles
Aye but it was aye
Aye lad it was Watermillock
The song of solitude of childhood
Don’t deny me the tears
Nothing rhymed
Then or now
Slate smell or fir trees furze
Karl arrived on a chopped push bike high handlebars and belt of beads  
spelling Singapore
School field scattered first years in exploding star
Cheese crisps clung to red cheeks in Penrith headline of shepherds  
with crooks
Leaning on Sandgate pubs
Five years later to write anarchy in red marker on whitewashed pub in  
alley
Run from farmers with gurns
Better the eleven years time in the world
Sees things in brown water trout you’ll never see again, much, probably
Probably not
Maybe
Maybe not
Perhaps

Simon