The Juke Box Cafe, Eversholt Street

One note, long and low; held

as the heart beat accelerates.

The chest muscles of a young man

begin to ache, yearning for the release

of tension during an age, if not

of discovery, at least of exploration;

experimentation, which some might call
youthful exuberance.

                                    Meanwhile

a saxophone player
with whom

                                   someone’s mother
almost ran away.when she was barely seventeen
...............(which was not yesterday)

looks up from a newspaper

where he’s been checking classified ads

and searching jobs vacant columns

that seem never to have changed

and in an act of recognition,

recollection maybe, he smiles fondly

but not entirely happily. 

Shine on you crazy diamond

He played the part once, on stage

in a student union bar somewhere,

north of Wolverhampton.

The band was rocking.  He was

on fire

but the moment had passed.

It was all downhill

from there.



I'd been listening to Roger Waters on BBC Radio Four's Desert Island Discs

.