they let me stay up.

hidden behind a curtain
motionless but breathing
my sister returning to bed
perplexed
by an unexplained absence

it happened at Kate’s cottage
Husthwaite
Yorkshire
God’s own country
God’s own world
as good, bad and ugly
adorned a black and white screen.

I will not forget
staying up
secretly watching
Clint, Eli and Lee Van
acting out a tale
operatic in its proportions

To recall that moment –

when years ago
I was thought almost grown
to watch
the suffering of war
to hear music I instantly loved
love now
much as way back when

a score to a brutal violence
that bruised a spaghetti wilderness
where good, bad and ugly
lived cheek by jowl
in the heart of each one
without a devil in sight

– makes me yearn to live it again
exactly as it was

perfect

a boys own adventure
where a twelve year old
experienced a kind of heaven

Eli was my favourite
Clint didn’t seem
– good
not in a way twelve years on earth
understood

older and maybe wiser
I understand
I think
the irony
Eli hurtling around a cemetery
a strange
desperate dance to music
looking for a grave

singled out
for the showdown to come
between good
bad and ugly
in each one
no devil in sight

and there they stood
those three
looking death straight in the face

I thought

but Clint wasn’t playing
chess