reflections on 'Billy Liar'

By Coolhermit

Wed, 02 Dec 2020
  • 585 reads
5 comments
 
reflections on Billy Liar
 
why can’t I be happy
like Julie Christie
stepping from that lorry cab
carefree - hair swinging loose
to a background jazzy flute?
 
my lift’s dropped me
in the Midlands,
 
Redditch? Hanley?
Burslem? Longton?
 
I’m knackered,
no grub, no digs,
pubs are shut
no cigarettes
 
I’ve no friend to ring and ask,
‘can you come and pick me up?’
 
I only wanted love,
to live in love,
share it with you,
get a little back
 
knowing you were mine
and I was yours,
would turn my life
from grey to wondrous -
I’d skip broken backstreets
like Julie Christie
that day she changed the world
 
winter nights, warm duvets
a lover’s breath brushing my face
wondering at her night sighs,
mutterings, and giggles
as the picture house inside her head
runs ‘one night only’ movie reels
 
our lives were suffocated
by the pain we inflicted
battling for the ‘upper hand’,
constant fighting quenched the light
of that high and holy land -
the dreamscape we created,
 
you, me, kids, a family
 
how did it come to this?
not even a barbed-wire ‘so long’ kiss
 
she called me bastard,
I called her bitch
 
we should have settled for
easy coming, easy going,
casual indifference –
 
we chose love and tasted bitterness
 
I did not want to hurt her
she did not want to hurt me
not really – it happened anyway
 
God may forgive us for what we committed
to break free of the others' clutches…
 
but we can never forgive one another.
 
 
Certificate PG
Poem
Love

Comments

Submitted by marandina on

A bouquet of barbed wire

 

Submitted by Coolhermit on

your Bouquet of Barbed wire comment is very apt  - it rings a bell  - was it a TV series?

Julie Christie changed my life when I saw Billy Liar  - sadly though I hit the road and landed in the gutter smiley hitching through the Midlands was, at the time, very bleak for me.

And in many ways my subsequent life has been little better ha ha :)

Rick

 

 

Submitted by marandina on

It was your barbed-wire kiss that put me in mind. "A Bouquet of Barbed Wire" was a controversial drama that included incest. It was a taboo breaker in the 70s.

 

Submitted by marandina on

Not that this has any bearing on your poem which I really enjoyed!

 

Submitted by Coolhermit on

thanks for your comment - much appreciated - I never saw Barbed Wire - as I reflect I recall the incest and that sort of thing ain't for me - I avoid programmes with sex scenes and avert my eyes when people kiss on-screen, let alone do bed stuff  smiley

 

Rick