Don't let me come down.

Don't let me come down
From the tree that stood
At the bottom of our garden
Dying from Dutch Elm disease
With views across Worle-
Where I grew up- children
Spitting and kissing in the
Street with lawn mowers
Buzzing in the summer heat.

Don't let me come down
The stairs walking, let me
Roll or bounce, let me
Make love, crawl or fall
Head first and become
A statistic in a book entitled,
'Death in our homes:
The frightening truth.'

Don't let me come down
From Weston-Super-Mare
To Lands End without tears
In my eyes that quickly dry
In the foaming Atlantic breeze
Fresh from America
(The breath birds fly on,
Round and round,
Never getting bored
Feeding and fighting
Against the sky, kissing like joys
Above Cornish granite rocks).

Don't let me come down-
If I do and break my back
Or put a hole in my skull
Give me your love by,
Constructing a winch
That'll pull me up,
Above the clouds, despite
My protests that everything
Is lost, the whole world on fire.

Don't let me come down.
Instead put a universe in front
Of me and call it a brick, a tree.
Give me Blake, Ginsberg, Kerouac,
The old man I met up Devil's Dyke
Who maintained he was not an angel.
Give me sand in my shoes,
Give me nothing then blow me
A kiss from a boat out of Southampton.
Then watch me paddle after you
And employ a boy to carry me
Around the world in a wheel barrow.

Don't let me come down
But spy on me, with binoculars
From behind a cypress
Then reappear one day
Dressed in lace as I'm
Giving the boy a weeks notice
High up in the Atlas mountains
Where there had been sightings
Of you trekking with a mule,
Your curly hair the talk of Marrakech.

Don't let me come down
By attaching a piece of string
To my right toe and pulling
Me down to earth
Just because everybody else
Is doing it in black and white.
Instead, come on up.
I'm tap dancing on a ledge.
I promise to get down
On one knee and pledge
That we'll jump off together
Hand in hand
And trust In something else.
Our last impression black,
A handful of stars.