Stop all the clocks cut off the telephone

He was my North my South my East and West

My working week and my Sunday rest

These were the only lines of the Auden poem that I could clearly remember

Which is exceptionally poor as I consider myself a poet

My mother on the other hand could remember huge chunks

Of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which she had learned before the war

Frequently I was teased by my mother about this but what I did not tell her

Was that I often read my own poems but could remember writing them

This said I have to date written over three thousand poems and fictions

So some vacancies should be expected especially as I live in small worlds

Illuminated only by the ghost lights which are hardly burning in the shadows by the exit door

My mother recognised this and said that real poets are aware of things so small

As to be insignificant to the average human eye

Poets often dream their poems during the long night hours

But have the ability to recall and record them in extreme detail

A discarded pencil in a gutter a used shopping list on a supermarket floor

These items and these thoughts are too numerous to record let alone count

My noon my midnight my talk my song

I have surprised myself as I have remembered another line

My mother smiles

It happens when I least expect it when I clear my mind

When I sort out the jumble of a jumbled jumble

Everything becomes clear so clear so very clear

I suggest that we should write a poem together

Starting at opposite sides of a circle and meeting somewhere near the centre

It would be fun as our styles differ radically

I do not have a style and remain a grasshopper as I have always have

My mother has a style a grand style as precise as a mathematical problem

We choose a subject something which she remembers fondly

Her school trip to Cliftonville in 1933

But then a nurse came into her room to change a dressing or something like

I waited in the hall staring at the October skies

Through a revival window now sheltered

When I returned my mother said that she was tired but we agreed that we would start the poem

On the Monday of the following week I would arrive promptly at twelve with a notebook and a pen

She however died at dawn on Saturday without issue without argument and without concern

She just faded into sleep

I did not see her after that

I could not physically do so

The unwritten shared poem would be our goodbye and nothing else

The stars are not wanted now put out every one.

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun

Pour away the oceans and sweep up the wood 

For nothing now can ever come to any good

I can remember poems

I was just kidding myself

I can remember my poems

I have remembered Audens poem

Anything else is a lie

My mother knew this

But did not let on

As she knew that I would

Discover this fact

Time and time and time again

As I composed

The Cliftonville Poem