Time Flies

 Billy with tight curls

cherub cheeks

knitted tank

running over The Debris

re-enacting El Alamein

with spud guns

running down the length

of Stebondale Street

your feet clattering 

past the empty docks

the gated Mudchute

in a lost London

where everyone was family.

Bill with a crystal set

memorising Goon routines

in your cramped back bedroom

recording reel-to-reel

Radio Luxembourg

‘208 - Your station of the stars’

hearing Acker Bilk

Humphrey Lyttleton

Chris Barber

for the first time

Bill Price for National Service

in a beautiful car

you couldn’t quite afford

the first of many

discovering your beard

women

a world beyond the world

where everyone was family

Uncle Bill to me

the globe trotting oil man

fresh from Angola

Canberra Trondheim

the Bayou

with crisp twenties

Christmas gifts

we couldn’t believe

Uncle Bill

gourmand and bon vivant

riding a cauldron of gumbo

with a ladle and

a tumbler of claret

Uncle Bill

connoisseur of pickled walnuts

owner of sunken boats

fat alley cat

laughing at the 

Singapore night

a hooker on your knee

Canadian Club poured free

making unreal friends

in a world where nobody

was family

Uncle Bill in Miami

living with Orpha

a brassy American widow

whose husband was killed

by the Mafia

living with

Joanne in Malmö

Cathy in Kuala Lumpur

any of the others

you never married

never had kids with

Bill again

once I was married myself

you had gravitated home

night watchman of

the new Canary Wharf

beard gone to white

drinking devoid of glamour

your favourite foods

beyond your spending limit

Billy back with his mum

broken Jag never running

memories start to fade

unworn Hawaiian shirts

unremarkable days

Old Bill trapped alone

in a cheerless flat in Hove

surrounded by trophies

body in revolt

your music becoming Trad

then Oldies

then just never played

Bill, Billy, Bill

my Uncle Bill

illegally

we tipped your ashes out

on the Mudchute

a bit too close to Asda

for my liking

and your little sister

my mother

spoke a few words

snatched by the breeze

carried

I know not where

I have your cookbooks

and the conch you heard the sea in

whenever you came home.

You were never William.

It wouldn’t have suited you anyway.