
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com
For Joe and Kitty
I came from a village where Victorian lampposts hung like dying daffodils
and the milky way was outshone by automated halogen each night at four pm
there was a rumour that above us was a universe but we never got to see it.
The first time we saw the universe over Joe’s cottage we swirled around like satellites
and the milky way offered sprigs of stars like gypsy heather in pressed foil
over this old sky, this old cottage where pigs and men ate in the same single room.
I came from a village where night shift workers like my Dad never loved the stars
there nebulae were the blue and green chests of pigeons shitting on factory presses
My Dad was a bitter man, an ale man, a man’s man, a nowhere man of Lennon
I am a starman
at Joe’s cottage we were children with the ancients –
Orion, Pegasus, and the firework of a tossed fag exploding on the wall like Apollo.