This battered book with faded ink
now seems an oddly fragile link
to someone who once was.

It took his notes of every type:
ideas for stories; musings; tripe
scribbled just because.

A recipe for drunken pork,
the definition of a dork,
extravagance defended.

Words looked up conscientiously —
conatus and phylogeny,
his lexicon extended.

The guests invited to a party
and those adjudged too loud and hearty;
gouda versus edam.

How cool that old friend on the phone,
how travelling was best alone,
how cash meant freedom.

Topaz, sardonyx, amethyst,
chalcedony... a gemstone list
with no apparent plan.

This hasty scrawl, for his own eyes,
is part-unknown; I recognise
maybe half the man.

So many false starts and blind alleys,
so many places where he dallies
with the ironical.

So loosely stitched with hindsight’s thread
these offcuts of a time now dead,
this patchwork chronicle.