Month: March 2021

Between rows of poplars
at Bank Station

On a Bali beach
with a cappuccino

At Liverpool Street
or the former site of Bedlam:

Love is not eating noxious crisps;
Love is allowing others to pass;
Love is keeping two chevrons apart.

Someone at the bank cares for me,
sees beyond my overdraft,
sells only fixed rate mortgages
whatever the Bank of England does.

Everything invested in your job
buys a Boxster, riviera yacht,
penthouse and Dom Perignon
as God broods over the bonds
and hovers over the surface
of The Financial Times:

Love waits for anyone.

If I can’t find words
or if they are halted by a synaptic lock keeper,
tyrannical yet wise, holding up a hand
to delay the latest craft, whatever its design,
I return to a trusted question,
my favourite formula:
Have you ever heard of Vincenzo Montella?

If I can’t find truth
or it’s out there in muddied layers of time
resounding through Sheldrake’s field
as memory traces in the collective mind,
I return to a trusted question,
my favourite formula:
Have you ever heard of Vincenzo Montella?

If I can’t dance
a question forms and lands
to looks as if from continent to continent,
with bafflement in subtle lines above the eyes.
My friends, do you know of the Aeroplanino,
our absent choreographer?
Have you ever heard of Vincenzo Montella?

If I can’t find beauty
or its sun in England only shines obliquely
forming shadows on our game
of a mild September evening,
I return to a trusted question,
my favourite formula:
Has anyone here heard of Vincenzo Montella?