000 - epigraph

"Where connections with those we love are not bound by time and space"

"All his life he told stories so he would not be forgotten"

Gene Tracy - A Science without Time (aeon.co)

001 - I saw you the other day

I saw you the other day. You came into the coffee house. I was seated at a table in a corner. You did not see me. I saw your smile. Although I am now an elderly man, you have not changed from the beautiful young woman who walked away. So many years ago.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter

Each look back

Love, Joy, Regret Despair

Now just your smile

002 - If I follow you

If I follow you through the door will I walk back into the lost past? Will I be able to tear up my speeches and actions to live a second life - written by me rather than by circumstances? Or is this cafe too comfortable?

I will tear up this sad sonnet that I have begun . .

During the loneliest hour of the dark night,

When time stands still and my memory fails,

I lose my life . . . . .

003 - couple in cafe

004 - writer/poet in cafe

Sit up straight
Eat your food
Please behave
Lose the mood

Kiss me quick
Touch me there
Go away
Disappear

Don't feel sad
No regrets
It's not so bad
At least not yet

005 - afraid to write

006 - Will you invite my words

• Will you invite my words into your
• Heart? Aching as they are to be free.

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• Will you listen to my words of
• Love? Making them strong in the hearing.

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• Will you read my words
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• Will you say my words
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• Will you think my words
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 fire works -- moon light --  honey moon -- pick up -- day dream -- day light -- moon struck -- good night -- nurse maid -- play thing -- for get                          

007 - painter/friend comes in from beach

008 - And then he began to write

Then one day he began to write on index-cards, in notebooks, on scraps and in his head - but mostly in his head, reluctant to let go of the words, to give away the only thing(s) he had left of himself, of her, and her, and her, to send out and seek the escaped dreams of the younger man.

When I was a boy I made lists. Many, many lists - of this and that, as a game, as an end to itself. Now as an old man I make lists of poems, articles, stories that maybe I will never write but need to write to understand who I am.

009 - Reading and writing as a magical ploy

Reading and writing as a magical ploy to get closer to a loved one after his death, and to discover oneself. Writing, which she refers to in another part of the book, as "the food of the gods", offers the chance to break out of the confines of daily life and on the wings of language, to intoxicate oneself with thoughts, and reveal oneself stripped bare.

What is indispensable is the opening of all flood-gates while maintaining the strictest standards and exercising ruthless discipline and rigour’. There is wildness in the first and second drafts, she has said, but the iron fist comes in with the third and fourth.    Friedericke Mayrocker

010 - what is out there

011 - The instant of composition

The instant of composition keeps the memory alive, raw. He will walk forward, with pain and difficulty, into the past and make it cohere. The church spire is a needle to his pole.

           Memory Maps: 'The Edge of the Orison: In the Traces of John Clare's 'Journey Out of Essex'' by Iain Sinclair http://www.vam.ac.uk/