7  You can always tell a Martock man stuck in the memory


Prodigious dumb love
Totally secure and clumsy
Circulates through the village, like bees
Or the slow mucky movements of cows
Regular, morose, uncomprehending

More pubs in Martock than churches
Cider the preferred drink
Catching the unwary, foreign
Those not used to the taste and the lees
Its dull colour of floodwater
Harsh, locked in

What do I remember
Different from what I know
Or my father told me?
Where was what was
Suddenly unforgotten live?
Like in a small court or lane
You didn't know was there
Until you entered
Everyone stares

Or else just empty
Old white cottages
Dimly made up