Up at the Old Clock Tower
Happy days until we were separated by different schools
The sun begins its vanishing trick
around the back of the old clock tower
where time stood still when we were kids
& bought us many a wandering hour
until the inevitable call for dinner.
We couldn’t hear the women call
but knew their voices like an invisible song
floating between houses & up the hill
to where we played, summoning life
from the old quarry & ragged tree clumps.
We still told time the old way.
Here is where I kissed Karen & Liz
on the mouth — or dreamed I did — learned
to carve eternity into trees & proudly compare
our phallic knives while building makeshift dens
& riding our bikes over derelict planks
orange crates or empty banana boxes as pivot.
I swore these friendships would last forever —
Kev, Carl, Pete, Chris, Simon, you are not forgotten
but in the end we went our separate ways.
How I regretted being sent to a school for ‘posh kids’
& losing my old mates, whose lives stayed loyal
to what we knew, what had been & what would slip away.
Copyright Simon Heathcote
