Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

  Time Not On My Side Precious days, months, years erode and nibble time away all too fast, casting memories aside to lie in fragments deep in my brain gradually fading away. Time On My Side Now in my seventh decade those fragments have awoken when I assumed they were gone. the arguments we had, silly jokes I told, me winning at scrabble (every time) well dancing, singing, working; tiny details of our life spewing forth in clear view and I remember us as we were. I still don’t know where the car is, I still can’t find the house keys. I’m sure, if you were here, you would know but time wasn’t on your side. © Christopher Lloyd Memories …… afterwards we didn’t meet again though I still dream of you, remember every inch of you, revel at your energy and zest, the way we were as one the iron bond we shared life partners, no one else mattered now simply one only dreams, memories of our days walking, chasing sticks but mistily, my eyes can see...

  I have become an app. app-arently. Presumably because I popped my clogs; no other reason makes any sense. I think I’m alive, virtually at least, somewhere in the “ether” I’m told. Not quite grasped that bit yet. Other than that it’s sort of a different normal once people get used to it. I have to be downloaded in order for people to interact with me; connect with me as it were. Unlike most apps it’s free plus no ads – cool eh? Sue! so you downloaded me…..How you doing? Did you go on the holiday without me? Yes, I did actually, a good time – Gerald went too What? Gerald oh my g … Well you weren’t here – it was platonic But you went anyway? Before or after I …. you know my funeral Why do you want to know that Right so before then; thanks a lot, wife. I had to or lose the money. What? We were insured. I thought so too but apparently you didn’t pay it….. Yes I did, on my card… oh damn I remember…. I was out of credit. Good job you had death insurance then, on...

‘He’ll not go down there. They’ve got a plot at St Mary’s. Had it for ages. His mam and dad were from there and have been keeping a space warm for him these last ten years.’ The three men fell silent, finished their drinks and then shouted the landlord for a last round. ‘That one was your last. Time to go home.’ On the following night they had news. The crackling, wet cough that had slid Jack Priestley into semi-consciousness on the previous day, had taken their neighbour to his Maker that morning. When they went to pay their respects, gone was the tell-tale bloom of pink on his cadaverous cheeks: gone the eerie, ruckling sound bubbling up from his exhausted chest. His eyes that had bulged and stared, had finally closed. A peculiar, suffering look he had for almost a year, had left his features in peace.   He was silent. As they had thought, he was to be laid to rest at St Mary’s with his father and mother, both gone long before him but patiently saving his place. It had ...

Life is far too short Days, weeks, months pass quickly by Time will never wait.   Forlorn and unkempt The flowers wither and die Are you still alone?   Can you sense me near? Where’s your final resting place? I cannot find you.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t go wandering off on your own, Rosemary. Keep to the paths.’ My mother could not understand my delight in being in the old cemetery, with its massive black, white or grey carved angels peering down at the people who stared up at them. The cheeky cherubim on children’s graves, smiling at the grief of bereaved parents never seemed quite right to me, though I smiled back at their chubby little faces, so perhaps that was the point. The graveyard surrounded our little church, spreading out and encroaching on the cornfields behind. The newly formed ‘Friends of St Ethelburga’s’, including my mum and me, arrived each weekend, carefully clipping back the grass, restoring the fallen headstones and replacing the grave borders. Neat flowerbeds now edged the path up to the West door and soon they would be starting on the next section. But the unkempt expanse to the north, they had agreed to leave. They said it was because they wanted a part of the ch...