JIM'S SUITCASE

Oh jim where will you be

The wallet you gave me

Cruel defroque

From a marriage that went to shit

It's a wreck in my memory

I keep my papers in it

You were a sailor in the royal navy

That house in Edenthorpe

The uncultivated garden that I neglected

The table where he wrote in front

To the soccer field

Your marriage failed

With Maureen

That fat girl

who spoke kornish

Mine too

You went to Cornwall

sad days at school

Good people of yorkshire

my drunkenness

The novel that got stuck

thyroid cancer

I see your face in my memory

Your voice sounds hoarse

Taken by the throat-clearing blonde tobacco

We smoked players

I delve into my silences (mushini)

But the light of your countenance comforts me (lik)

I hear the silence of your cries

It could not be

I walked around the world

In fits and starts

I fell into the chasm

And I stood up again

But you?

Did you succumb in

  The cliff?

You survived the roar of the wild beasts (zvieri)

I'll keep your suitcase

forever

Container of my aspirations

and delusions

It couldn't be, neighbor,

28 Scott Crescent

Edenthorpe village

You looked at me with your blue eyes

full of sadness

Today melancholy afflicts me

From England

A nightingale sings in the fog

I have to cry forever

My sins