A drink with First Matie and Nick

Swipe me, finally paid by my old agency. Also Matt sent me a postcard of an angel in St Michael's church, which looked amazing, and hopefully can be incorporated into our publicity.

Fiddling with poems in preparation to seeing Richard and Jane next week. Really looking forward to going across to Guernsey. Late in the afternoon I received a call from First Matie, which was very well timed as my head was ready to explode. Met her and her pal Nick for a drink in the Eagle, just like a normal person, having a drink after work. Nice to see them. Nick about to leave Brighton for Bristol. First Matie looking well and on good form. After, chugged sparkling water until Lorraine arrived. Another swift beer and a takeaway Chinese meal later, we slugged on the sofa watching crap TV.

Here is the latest version of one of the poems I have been working on. Guernsey is a spooky place sometimes, and this is an attempt to capture that feeling.

Night walk

The whine of the moped’s engine
diminishes in the dark parish
and stupidly I spook myself
imagining the scuff of shoes
in the lightless lane behind me.
It is a moonless night, motile
with satellites and Perseids
that skid across the starry sky
like momentary omens.
Black bats burst the halo
of the streetlight I have reached
and my shadow is elastic
it dials its dark around me
yearning down the crow black lane
where my feet can only follow.

Guernsey, you were my safest home
but I know there are black books
stored under the floorboards
and Le Gardien du Tombeau
looks down on many secrets:
your soil is the ash of witches
dead slaves lie in labyrinths
the Nazis groined in granite.

I can’t stop this crazy thought
that there’s someone else out there
with eyes black-barred like those of goats
who would lead me to descend
stumbling past the closed café
to the uneasy midnight sea.

But what scares me most is me.
I’m half laughing, half afraid
for tonight is not the last night
that I’ll be drawn into the dark.
I still have time. I can return
to my room and its bright desk light
and type and type and type till dawn.