I was clearing out some of my old stuff from my mum’s house – my name’s Alex Drake and this box of old papers has taken me back to 1989 – and, amongst other things, I found this untitled poem I’d written out several times on both sides of an envelope addressed to my then-girlfriend’s mother. I had to look it up to find out who it was by. Good, though.
Oread by H.D.
Whirl up, sea -
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us -
Cover us with your pools of fir.
I also found stashes of NMEs, lots of newspapers from the 1980s, most of which I have no idea why I kept, so I’ve binned them. And a shoebox full (okay, half-full) of letters and cards from an ex-girlfriend. An entire relationship in a box. The one where she tried (unsuccessfully) to end our relationship was a good read. Even better the one where, later, she explains why she cheated on me. Reading between the lines now I think I deserved it and she was doing me a favour. At any rate it made me smile and it’s quite a thing to think that it’s taken twenty years to get from there – standing, alone on Stockport station waiting for a train back home, my life falling apart around me, to now – standing alone in a loft reading her letter about her night with Andrew – with a big, silly grin on my face.