SPRY THREE MINUTE MINITURES

Do you believe in reincarnation? I do. I am certain we have been here before and we shall be here again. Today's poem asks what happens if one out of a karmic bond arrives on the planet much earlier than their soul mate?

REINCARNATION BLUES

It was lucky that we had the gramophone,

separated as we were by time,

and you could leave me messages

in the canyon spirals of shellac discs,

cunningly wrought as they were from insect resin.

Eventually I happened upon them

in fire sales of bankrupt stock.

Then with a growing fascination,

in the backrooms of second hand shops

that litter the fading ports this side of the warming sea.

You described your love for me

in the words of Tin Pan Alley tunes,

spry three minute miniatures that chronicle

the moves of smiling men who could never be me,

and the heartbreak from their treachery.

You see I arrived too late though not by choice.

You had jumped impulsively from the Bardo

as the drop zone came into sight.

I hesitated. Too late I followed.

Half the globe away your siren songs had long been sung.

You were gone decades ago

and now I have the hands of an old man

with a face that almost matches.

This time around we got out of step.

Mistiming, loneliness are the lessons we lived this life to learn.

The idea came when I was listening to some 78 rpm discs. I thought could you use old records to contact your true love in the future? Rather like the music David Bowie makes in The Man Who Fell To Earth to explain why his character cannot return. I'm not sure that's made explicit in the film but it is in the book.

I suppose I'd better go with some of the man's music.

Until next time.