Now And Then Poem by jim hogg

Elon Musk and a minotaur
will make their way on motorbikes
to Bandersnatch by way of Mars
if I can hold on long enough,
but I'm on the slippery cobbles here,
almost disconnected, barely balanced.

Above endless other stories to come
I see no end to blue and white skies
that hold the steepled churches,
the town hall and off road powered people
fixed to the slashes of charcoal and light
- we barely seem to live in now -
of a world that's tilting away again
towards a certain Roukenglen;
to eighty three and your lemon skirt,
our temporary secrets still intact,
in the shadow of ancient Sycamores
and all around us vague abscondees
from superstores and offices
strolling in their temporary ease
through your tenderness in everything:
the broken law of the land, exhuberant kids,
the smiles and knowing words, the silences
of other lovers, and the healing hands
that took you to England and further afield
after risking your heart without stint.

You climbed from the wreckage of Teucharhill
into the heights above Drumoyne
and leapt down into the old hospital.
A Catholic girl with a gifted tongue
you knew exactly who you were
mile after many a windless mile
beneath Dalmally's winter sun
on foot, before we danced all night
without a moment's doubt it seems
back down to Langlands Road
and over the Clyde to all the bars
on Byers Road where we ran full tilt,
hand in hand on a summer's night,
like children wild under warm sunlight.
The crazy charts said of our love
that it was "hot as the hottest sun
and deep as the deepest sea". It was,
yet other stars squeezed in between,
our futures colliding like galaxies,
volumes of us from that solid world
unravelling image by image at last,
where misty sea meets misty sky
down the corridors of days
between Loch Lomond and Atlanta..