Cambridge Air


Somethin about that Cambridge air
gustin philosophies across diocese of rant
tricklin fingers down impressionable spines
pointin at surer steps to be made than these
somethin about that Cambridge air
                                   gave you a holy glow

must have been something about that air
perambulatin around your tight little figure

Somethin about the air that fitted you with grace
                                        that inhabited you with charm
your unnerving fortitude seemed to have given way
in a smooth breeze of blank time

Somethin about that Cambridge air
stole away my frightened china doll
with rolling eyes n bright windchime smile

Ah, yes! The day you opened the letter
n you gazed down a long sterilized alleyway

at me

as if to say          I never told you so
as if to say          you’d finally won

Somethin about that Cambridge air
took away those wars

Something about that Cambridge air
bitin at the heels as you skipped away from here
mockin bird thrashin its wiry wings
fuckin in the basement as your mum
cut hair in the kitchen above
smoking through the chimney stack sat in old ash stains
n when you pined after me
at the end
I realised you would burn my copy of Ulysses
and that, after the sweat and the smoke,
was all I had left to regret

people thought you were unhinged
a bra full of nervous explosives
                              n I stood by you

I stood by you in torrents of wildebeests
In monolithic growls of spit n semen

But you were the one who wore black suspenders
to your father’s funeral
n I was the one that got drunk
               n got fat               n lazy             n hated

I always had you down as a black widow
n decided with priapal punctuation
that the world was welcome to you
                                     and Ulysses

but somethin about that Cambridge air
bread Circe in a nightclub in a conservative outfit

Somethin about that Cambridge air
enveloped a cruel and dismissive reality
n released a grey fathom
a shaolin ecstasy

Somethin about that Cambridge air allowed me a glimpse
                           of that which I remember fantasising
of what I remember feeling in soft sun afternoons
in the smell of the tangy grass cut
when we would shyly pass visual comments to each other
from afar

I think of the Cambridge air
I think of the past and I think of the present
and how the future rolls out ahead
regardless of our inclinations n our eating habits
I think of you
n how you were in the truth of my dream
n how I was after all proved to be a prophet