Observatory Street, Oxford - 5

I’m tired now of Observatory Street,

Its narrowness and coloured houses
Filled to the eaves with ghosts,
Each a voice urging me to leave,
With yours much the loudest,
Combining together as a dark
Choir that in surrounding me ,
Cuts out all light and,
In my imagination, sings
In the very highest notes of
Haunting discord shattering
All of me that you once saw through,
All now just shards of glass.

And, this was once a street of music.

Returning home I would gauge your mood
Against the pulsing sounds heard
As far as the turn of Walton Street;
The might of Mozart, hot Santana rhythms,
Ethereal Tallis, Schoenberg tensions,
Days of John Lee Hooker blues..

And suddenly the music stopped.

The turntables stilled; piled records strewn.
You had gone. The silence of the street your lasting legacy.

So, now, gathering these voices,

Stepping through this broken glass,
These scattered notes and half remembered old scores,
I will leave the dissonance that is Observatory Street,
And ride the warmest of melodies,
Travelling endlessly the circle of the Earth
Searching for you.