Primrose Hill

 I’d blacked your eye in Beaconsfield

but gradually we’d patched things up

refilled our empty loving cup

with cheap red wine.

That night, we lay on Primrose Hill.

Moon drunk, we’d fucked against a tree

and may have taken ecstasy

or done some speed

but in our nest of lager cans

we’d staked our spot and kept a watch

sustained by joints and hits of scotch

till morning came.

Apocalyptic London rose

from yellow fog, great slabs of grey,

and joggers met to greet the day,

the fucking fools.

That morning’s thirty years ago.

You loved me then and I loved you.

It wouldn’t last and we both knew

and didn’t care.

I look back now with darkened eyes

at how we spent those insane nights

of bruising love and crushing fights

and cherish them.

But now I’m a good family man

and dawn breaks as I write this line.

Listen to the blackbird calling time

on reverie.