Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
SAD MEMORIES OF A STUDENT DAY
By P B Taylor
I
Have you sat against a glass?
And peered curiously through it?
In between you see the past
Flicker round your confused mind
Good friends and poor untrusted enemies
Simmering thoughts held in that bottomless pit
Sickeningly they flash quickly past
In that forgotten labyrinth of immemorial time
II
Critics of the cold and the lonely
Cold elderly seems so ripe and so unfair
As when you approach extreme age
Memory the faded only companion
Some step meekly tentatively forward
With a treasured memory something to care
Reminds each and all with that old nostalgia
And memories of a defeated sullen nation
III
Those red sloping hills of memories
Within the tortured now forgotten brain
Of our crazy thoughts so often high
Sometimes low within ideals trapped inside
My mind now rests in a spin, complex
In a static lively volatile but sad refrain
Pleased now that I realise I don’t wish
To live to the picked date of ninety-five
IV
Memory is a weird and wonderful thing
Picky little incidents partly remembered
And big ones mainly now forgotten
As Custer’s hair was possibly fair
Not knowing where he fought
The sketchy details of how he died
That quick note seen later
Minds think only with a due care
Amersham, Bucks. 12th April 1973
Phillip Taylor MBE was born in Amersham and educated at London University and the Inns of Court School of Law. His working life was spent, firstly at the BBC in London, in the Ministry of Defence and the Army, and then as a barrister at law and mediator at Lincoln’s Inn after he was called to the Bar.
He was Chairman of the Society of Civil Service Authors Poetry Workshop from 1982 to 1986 and contributed to their annual anthology FOCUS. His poems and short stories have appeared in journals, magazines and newsletters and some have been broadcast by the BBC. He has produced several poetry collections since 1972.
The Poetry Workshop was founded by Bill Barnes in 1970. It was a part of the Society of Civil Service Authors (founded in 1935) which now known as the Society of Civil and Public Service Writers.
SAD MEMORIES OF A STUDENT DAY
By P B Taylor
I
Have you sat against a glass?
And peered curiously through it?
In between you see the past
Flicker round your confused mind
Good friends and poor untrusted enemies
Simmering thoughts held in that bottomless pit
Sickeningly they flash quickly past
In that forgotten labyrinth of immemorial time
II
Critics of the cold and the lonely
Cold elderly seems so ripe and so unfair
As when you approach extreme age
Memory the faded only companion
Some step meekly tentatively forward
With a treasured memory something to care
Reminds each and all with that old nostalgia
And memories of a defeated sullen nation
III
Those red sloping hills of memories
Within the tortured now forgotten brain
Of our crazy thoughts so often high
Sometimes low within ideals trapped inside
My mind now rests in a spin, complex
In a static lively volatile but sad refrain
Pleased now that I realise I don’t wish
To live to the picked date of ninety-five
IV
Memory is a weird and wonderful thing
Picky little incidents partly remembered
And big ones mainly now forgotten
As Custer’s hair was possibly fair
Not knowing where he fought
The sketchy details of how he died
That quick note seen later
Minds think only with a due care
Amersham, Bucks. 12th April 1973
Phillip Taylor MBE was born in Amersham and educated at London University and the Inns of Court School of Law. His working life was spent, firstly at the BBC in London, in the Ministry of Defence and the Army, and then as a barrister at law and mediator at Lincoln’s Inn after he was called to the Bar.
He was Chairman of the Society of Civil Service Authors Poetry Workshop from 1982 to 1986 and contributed to their annual anthology FOCUS. His poems and short stories have appeared in journals, magazines and newsletters and some have been broadcast by the BBC. He has produced several poetry collections since 1972.
The Poetry Workshop was founded by Bill Barnes in 1970. It was a part of the Society of Civil Service Authors (founded in 1935) which now known as the Society of Civil and Public Service Writers.
