House on Nameless Street
By John BirkBeck

You'd rush off to Patagonia
or Guinea-Bissau-- but no--
it'd turn out to be Brazil
or was it Tangier or Marrakesh?

Your disposable wardrobes of (do you mean "Your disposable..." ?)
surnames and True Loves and (do you mean "surnames and ...." ?)
storms of dissaffection ran (do you mean "storms of..." ?)
toward the further edges of maps. (do you mean "toward the..." ?)
You'd be old now, like me,
a veteran of frivolous loves
and meaningless hatreds and
escapes into far geographies.

You might, this moment, be living
among your cats and violets
in a big unpainted house
two hundred years old.

I want to think you'd be
finally at peace-- and be
amusing yourself in memories
of explorations of impulse,

and not just another piece
of sun-baked real estate
in the wider world, beyond where
fresh starts at last run out.

I was a late bloomer, and had not published any poems until I was in my middle forties. Since then I've had poems published in many small press magazines worldwide, as well as five books of poems. Family legend has it that we're descended from Lord Byron, if that means anything other than having a good name-drop. For over thirty years I worked as a scientific illustrator forJames Van Allen, the discoverer of the radiation belts that werenamed for him. At present, I am the producer and host of a TV programme called "The Poets' Corner."