Non-narrative

It’s odd.

 

When I try to write anything about my past –

childhood or later years;

It always comes-out like this.

 

I cannot seem

to string a sentence together that reaches the end of the line;

or,

at least not consistently.

 

It is as if

the past is encoded as fragments

as specs of

hiding in the woods in Huntly Park

or

smelling the damp of Rouken Glen;

the

dust of road behind school

becomes mixed with scene

where I am sitting with Annie & TV on wall

in pub

is telling us

that Diana has died.

 

There are these discrete entities that do not exist;

we call them

long

and short

and medium term

Memory

but

In reality

they are just

sparks of action potentials

coalesced in my brain.

 

and I wonder

whether

the head injuries I have experienced

over the years

Have already contributed to the loss of memory

to road-blocks between my synapses.

 

‘Men at work’

says the pathway

that takes me to the first days of school

for I know it happened,

yet,

it is in a void.

 

The first years are quite patchy

with the exception

of the odd

photograph

faded red and navy blue

ties

Nervous fingers

and

plaster over my knee

from the fall

that became infected

and

I can remember

my mum

tending the wound,

the pus/

Gravel mixed-in

and limping

although

not making too big a thing of it.

 

&

Looking backwards

to my ancestors

huddled in Shtetl,

who got by without polaroid aides to memory

and forwards

to my children

who have moment by moment

recorded

on my phone

hanging in the cloud;

how will this affect their view of the past,

tomorrow?