Afternoons in half-lit rooms
Dusty sideboards, itchy coats
Mincemeat and apostle spoons
And being at each others’ throats
The master of your own demise
You’ll never get your way back when
Spite and money, plastic lies
Suky, take it off again
Light the candles, say your prayers
How things used to glow and shine
No-one listens, no-one cares
Oliver and Valentine
Years ago and years away
Smile a vacant smile for me
What words left for me to say?
The clock strikes one, then two, then three
The sunlight falls in narrow slants
The ticking clock, the polished floor
Someone’s wish that someone grants
Winter mornings fade and thaw
Austerity that died with time
This was never really mine
Did we ever find the rhyme?
Oliver and Valentine
Children are a bit like ghosts
Floating on the edge of things
Drink your long-forgotten toasts
And drown in time and all it brings
I’m in the garden years ago
The sun is shining down on me
Something I may never know
In the air and lost at sea
I saw too many shadows there
Nothing’s ever really fine
Moments that we stand and stare
Oliver and Valentine
by Roya Brehl