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I Came Back To You In September

I came back to you in September
you were quiet then
still,
like you used to be,
when men were men
and I was just a child

When the smell of the fish docks
mingled well with the stench of the slaughter from the cattle market
and an early morning crescendo of hooters 
meant work
And you had to go 	
When your father
and my father 
crowded down on the docks
desperate to catch the foreman's looks

And from where so many fathers 
were turned away
broken
yet unbitter men

Returning home like so often you did
to pray and dream of better days than these
and you hoped that things would change
but for you
you knew
that they never would.

And then the war came
and I was sent away to fight for my country
this country
the one which had kept us all alive on a few pence a week
and I left behind the smell of the fish docks
the reek of the slaughter
to earn my place in that world
Your world

And one day I returned
fell in love and made love
amongst the ruined ashes of what once was
of what could never be again
I lay planning out my life while the bombs fell

And I sat amidst the solitude of that old terraced house
frightened to death by that silence
that stillness
as ceaseless clocks 
ticked slowly away
an era
an end
and I looked at your face
and tried so hard not to see my own

And I returned to that war
that cruel bloody war
fighting one inside me even greater than that one could ever have been
but that war ends
and I returned to that war
your bloody war
the one you pretended you never saw

And the world returned to the smell of the fish docks
the reek of the slaughter
to that broken down world
full of broken down lives
grey faced men 
greeting
faceless, shapeless wives

And long before faces could ever begin to smile
you died 
quietly giving up on your life 
like you had so many years before
and I died
as they buried you in an already forgotten part of that world
and I could linger there no longer
and left behind the smell of the fish docks
the reek of that slaughter

And I came back to you in September
back to stare at a world which once was
and yet could never be again

Only a few old buildings remained
standing empty and silent 
like when the bombs came
and I looked into that face
and tried so desperately not to see my own

And I stood aloof to a world which could no longer reach me
yet still I trembled
lest some derelict echo from the past drew me back into that world
that old cruel world
where all men ever wanted to be was men

And yet how I loved you in September
as time once more stood still
and oh 
how I loved that stillness
as I returned to where childish laughter once filled empty spaces
places where I had so long ago ceased to dream

Amidst the dark dancing shadows 
where love becomes so physical 
that the poet's dreams are so finally shattered

And on the cracked broken pavements where the bombs fell
where you fell
where we all fell
so many years before

And silent leaves fall on your grave
on my grave
like falling tears
my tears
for so many wasted years

I came back to your in September
you were quiet then
still,
like you used to be,
when men were men and I was just a child.

Copyright © Ray Moody | Year Posted 2016

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