M.emories

The Engagement (1970 -

You told me, ‘I’m my own baby, like Gertrude Stein was hers.
If you are nice to me I’ll be quite good. Nice means giving into me.
Don’t be alarmed. My demands will be reasonable,
in a baby sort of way. The main thing is no matter what I do,
it must be…taken for granted. Then we will be happy’.

 

Heart Beat

The day I left Ireland, the headlines
were all about the world’s first heart transplant.
The day you left Scotland,
Rolls-Royce went bankrupt.
 

How You Became ‘m’ (1995)

That summer you spent alone in Hove
at a matinee of The Visit starring Lauren Bacall
during the interval, a little girl came up to you
and asked, ‘Are you famous?’ You said, ‘No’.
The little girl promptly pressed her autograph
book in your hands. She had already written in bold letters,
‘For Margaret Bigge’. You signed a little ‘m’ under it .
Another fan suitably impressed. 

 

PS: Why Alone?

You left me for a motorbike (a Zephyr Kawasaki 750 cc,
which drank and smoked).

 

Partnership 

He would do anything for her.
But she wanted to do everything herself.
Which suited him, he knew.
However, they reached an accommodation.
not only when it suited her. She and he found
they suited one another.

 

Sweet Dreams (2012)

You drop off to sleep while reading a book about a man
who decides to give up sleeping so that he can live
life without illusions. 

 

Don Cherry

Choosing music to sleep to is difficult...

 

Epitaph 

M has been giving the world the run around for six and a half decades. Now the world is running around her.