For what it's worth, this is actually in three parts for two readons. Obviously the three sections are themed around past, present and future. The first section looks back at the olden days repetitively. The middle section is deliberately dualistic, with the short lines and the long lines, meaning to capture some idea of experience and an immediate linguistic response to said experience, (of course, as a more complicated thought develops in the last stanza, the rhyme scheme changes). The last section is supposed to be looking forward to what will happen as a result of the experiences, the changes that happen.
However, it's also, (as can just about be told from the perspective of each speaker) supposed to be a section for each person there. Past is me, present is Steph, future is Megan. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on how the whole thing is supposed to fit together at the end.
Good God that was pretentious. Here's the poetry.
Three
1- Past
Friday.
With not lots happening, happily:
I leave collapsed West Indians
(Shadows of Kingly forebears)
For sunlit train tracks,
Stretching into yesterday.
Unkempt, Unshaved, Unready,
Unable to entice more
Company. Except
That Three's company
And Four's a crowd.
So just a three-in-oneness
Of people.
Spiritual in some way.
What was
Forgot was
Twenty years of stony memory
(Of oneiric wakefulness)
Has jolted erstwhile cradle
Of someone who could cry
Without anxiety.
All that was Expected
Has passed
And now the grail is
Honesty.
Self-realisation.
Quiet bravery
In aging trains.
2- Present
Oh Wank.
It happens the moment we leave the bank.
Thong Ripped.
Shoes broken in seconds, though I am untripped.
Stone Hard.
Scratches on the Cobbles, my feet are now jarred.
Cold age.
Invading my soul with insouciant rage.
Hut hit.
The only Bath haven for refills and shit.
A band.
Relief in elastic that jumps in the hand.
My life
A series of moments of physical strife.
The bill.
All spruced with the mints that will sugar the pill.
A flick.
The renegade parents who make you feel sick.
Despair.
The red of the passion that's gone from the air.
Delight.
The girl with the ginger who's gone in the night.
Then hurt.
As people stand up and are covered in dirt.
The Boy.
Impatient half-waiting that's singing his name.
What joy.
That way past eleven we're playing his game.
And sleep
Important but tricky as everyone knows.
Is deep
And hard to plunge into while oarsman Time rows.
3- Future
Bath is a city of paradoxes.
It's a monument to the past.
But as with all cities, it contains
Life, and therefore living
In the present.
And while it contains, beaker of history,
Inspiration, it will always make The
Future, that word that bad art
And bad Star Wars, never wash
The hope out of. A New Hope.
Time present and time past, then.
Clanging quotations of undergraduate
Servitude. While the night darkens,
And we return towards the train station.
This escape, back to Trowbridge,
Is an admission of defeat. Of necessary
Sleep before we envelope today with the Future.
Chewing too much popcorn can leave
No desire for more. This is why there are
Snack sized Mars bars. Pockets of delight.
And here, ticking the metres from here
To home, and bed, and childhood,
There's just a quarter-hour of happiness.
Not dramatic, not a resolution
Not tiring, not an action,
Not reflective, not indulgent nostalgia.
Not the past, present or future, only.
An aspect of time that reflects
Through all three.
Like mist off the Avon.
Like communion.