Robin Hood’s Dell

Look into my eyes...
A fretboard glints in the dappled shade
Of my memory.
A green hood masks your face
But you're still here.
Robin...

(Whispers) - I'm here.

Search your heart, search your soul...
"I'm here. Take me...Back."
Back in the Summer of '91,
Through 16 weeks atop strata'd charts, Many months of Sundays,
Spent in our hearts;
An isolated teen-villager
With my fingers poised
Over the pause button
Of life's ghettoblaster.
Radio 1, my airplay DJ on air-guitar,
Connecting me to the wonders
Of the outside world
With reels of cassette tape
And sellotape.

Robin..
Bryan and his merry men,
Strumming my heart-strings,
Kevin, bow-strapped,
Ready for action.
There's no love like your love...
You were but Smash Hits posters on my wall,
Literal lyrical ballads
On pull-out centre-folds,
Now you are here,
In real-life,
Standing tall.

You know it's true...
The day you landed here,
Alien-like beneath this lime-leaved bower,
Where nature's own poets romanticised
Long before rock-gods were the norm;
Time and space shifted,
As your rotor-blades
Sliced through my perspective
Of my small-sheltered existence:
Global stars had come to shine over us!
Maybe 'outside' isn't so far away after all.

You can't tell me it's not worth tryin for...
Your guitar-break rings out still -
Reverberating around the ruined walls herein,
Chasing my conscience through the dell,
Up and over Dorothy's bridge...
She would want me to shine 'outside' too.

Robin...

I stole your rich to feed my poor,
Awake, I stand now -
At the door.

(This one's for you girls,

Everything I do, I do it for you)

A Wensley

21.05.2023