An Excerpt from a Verse Memoir
 
I
 
London Uni isn’t working.
Time to do something of my own
rather than all this meaningless shirking.
I go for busking on trombone.
To hell with any sense of duty!
I’m drawn towards the charm of beauty. 
I try the Tube at Waterloo.
A bobby’s telling me to shoo.
 
“Don’t know why you people do it,”
he says, pretending he’s perplexed,
perhaps to camouflage he’s vexed.
How can anyone misconstrue it?
Although it’s intended as a snub,
I’m now a member of the club.
 
II 
 
Beth was a goddess. Who could fault her?
We shacked up on the Isle of Dogs,
then hitchhiked from Toulouse to Gibraltar
along the coast. My travelogue’s
a description of how each twilight swims in
orange-lemon-purple-crimson.
It took us most of March, a slice
of luck in fucking paradise.
 
One afternoon, she bursts my bubble.
She’s no desire to accompany me
abroad again. Apparently,
her curly, blonde hair’s just asking for trouble.
She doesn’t suggest dyeing it brown,
just very gently lets me down.
 
III
 
I’m playing my trombone in a tunnel
with well-known tunes from way back when. 
Doing something mostly for fun’ll
set me on my feet again.
Honestly, though, my life’s a muddle:
nobody now for me to cuddle.
She’s met somebody. He’s called Ray.
Days without her seem so grey.
 
I’ve met a poet, Laurence Bellotti,
who’s happily taken me under his wing.
I listen closely to him sing
despite the fact I’m feeling grotty.
I’m disinclined to disapprove; 
his childlike verses match my groove.
 
IV
 
Lucky to find somebody gentle
– she’s amputated both my wings –
and feeling rather sentimental,
I catch my breath as Laurence sings:
“Don’t you see I’m only crying
Tears which show that I’m not lying;...
So don’t feel sad for me no more...”
If I could speak, I’d shout: “Encore!”
 
I go to see Robert de Niro
starring in Once Upon a Time
in America: utterly sublime,
both soundtrack and the villain hero.
There isn’t anyone to say
I can’t go again the following day.
 
Duncan Gillies MacLaurin

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Duncan Gillies Maclaurin  would like to hear them