The first line of this poem was going to be ‘The first line of this poem is a lie’
But then I realised this meant that the lie was actually in the second line
So I made ‘the first line is a lie’ the title of the piece
Now I’ve written all of this the lie is actually in the fifth line
I haven’t written anything for tonight, sorry
I’m tired
Drove to Scotland, Sunday
Well, I tried
Broke down on the M6
By Bamber Bridge
Crawled into a Hungry Horse car park
The recovery man said she was unrecoverable at that hour on a Sunday. Oh.
Taxi to Preston
Train to Glasgow
Hired a car for the 100 mile drive to Oban
I would’ve walked
Two days fun
With my little one
Bought her a charity shop pony that neighs and blinks
Had hot chocolate by the harbour to drink
Played horses and unicorns Top Trumps
The usual colouring-in and laughing at our own nonsense
Then falling asleep in a heap
It all flew by too fast, always does
Wednesday morning dropped her at school
Hit the road home to Liverpool
Hire car returned
Lunch scoffed watching the departures scroll
Glasgow Central Station
Where it all began for me up there
“Nae trains heading south today, pal”
Five hours on the bus to Preston
The woman sat beside me muttered playing bridge on her phone
“Just my luck!”
Until we started chatting
An Evertonian with punk sensibilities who collects modern art
Her daughter picked us up at Wigan North Western
We promised to keep in touch
Got the car back today
Needs a new clutch
Jamie Yates 2019
Mr. Jamie Yates 