Filling in time

I wake up in the room where

Fifty years before

Janis and Jimi had died

And Nixon bombed Hanoi

Where I read the programmes

From The Battle of Britain

And York Model Railway

Where my father hit my mother

And my uncle died

Where Morecambe and Wise entertained

And The Beatles released their final hit

Where a fitted carpet was laid

And natural gas gave a blue flame

I woke up in a room

Seven years old

When the world was still in its infancy

With everything still to be done

Where the fixtures were modern and new

Then I go in the garden and piss

Beneath the conifer under the door

Where the fence and the garage meet

And cloud obscures the moon

Where I ask what the hell I’m doing here

And of course the answer comes

That I’m only filling in time