A Time of Change by Jonathan Taylor

A Time of Change
The programme tells me it was a Time of Change
with a montage of Ringo Starr and twisting mini-skirts
or punks, studs and disgruntled preachers
or placards, flying pickets and Mrs. Thatcher,

as if the documentary is an older professor
swirling a glass of brandy in an upholstered chair
recounting with a condescending nostalgia
the history of his misspent adolescent years
full of spots, wet dreams and anger,

unaware, it seems, that behind the first
sits another, even older history professor
recounting from an upholstered chair
that earlier self, now seen as pubescent, puerile,
(and no doubt simultaneously male-menopausal)
going through a Time of Change

and behind him sits another and so on
each speaking from the wise upholstered stasis
of the present about strange Times of Change
which are always and only ever in the past.

 

About the Poet
Jonathan Taylor is an author, lecturer, critic and editor. His books include the novels Melissa (Salt, 2015) and Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012), the memoir Take Me Home (Granta, 2007), and the poetry collection Musicolepsy (Shoestring, 2013). He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester in the UK. His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk.