Love and Other Things

By Kevin Robinson

LOVE and other things is romantic, emotive and at times, brutally honest.
The book reaches out to touch the readers open heart and is an invitation
To have their heartstrings tugged and their senses awoken.

Kevin Robinson

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Apr 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491893067

Book preview

02 Look at me I’m (terrible) two

For my beautiful granddaughter

Ella Rose.

Look at me I’m (terrible) two

I’m fed up with wearing nappies

Unhappy with the plastic potty

As yet I’m not talking to the toilet.

I’ve learnt quite a few words

Some I copy others I make up

I often like saying the word no

I definitely don’t like hearing it.

I can walk pretty well now

Mostly in the right direction!

It’s boring so I’ve learnt to run

I prefer climbing, climbing’s cool:

I like crunching Nana’s Polo Mints

Love microwave chips and vinegar

I speed-eat fruit, especially raspberries

And I’m fond of sucking Baby Wipes.

I’m becoming quite a good artist

Making floor patterns out of anything

Like crisps, yoghurt, dried cat food

I’m really well known for my work.

I’m learning to drive Granddad’s car

Rearrange plastic garden furniture

Ride dogs without even steering them

And wake cats without scaring them.

I’ve been trying out new tactics

To see if I can get my own way

Like stiffening up and screaming

Not sure if it’s working for me yet.

All-in-all being two is not so bad

It certainly keeps me out of trouble!

There’s nothing terrible about being two

In fact I’d recommend it.

03 When I had nothing

When I had nothing

I dreamt of wealth

Acquiring my fortune

Then losing it all

I dreamt of wealth no more

Though I had nothing

I understood richness

And the value of it.

04 Auto-love

I remember little of the production line

Maybe because I wasn’t fully constructed

I always believed I was specially ordered

But then we all said that to one another

No one admitted to being a blanket order.

Row upon colourful row in a grey compound

We mused over different and exciting futures

All dreaming of that perfect first-time owner

Surreptitiously herded into designated groups

Split up by rough-handed uncaring bullies.

In these more intimate reflective moments

I noticed what seemed at first like-for-like

Was in fact a myriad of different options

Specifications ran far beyond colour choice

Though fundamentally we were all the same.

Friendship grew in these renegade groups

Isolated from the constantly growing masses

We stood firm and cemented our loyalties

One by one loaded onto the delivery truck

One by one delivered never to meet again.

Under the bright fluorescent showroom lights

My young unblemished bodywork sparkled

Many a customer made improper comments

Maybe it was my brand-new innocent naivety

But I guess I should’ve felt uncomfortable.

You came in and made a beeline for me

Your fingertips touched every exposed panel

That was the first time I’d felt soft hands

Absolutely sheer electric! Love at first sight:

You left with an unsigned picture of me.

I remember the first time you drove me

I was so nervous that my engine stalled

Just my inexperience in these matters

Perhaps added to by your overeagerness

We soon settled into a shared rhythm.

You were very courteous and gentle

And ran my tightness in dutifully

But, I had an engine to be raced

And a chassis to handle the power

I seduced you in the ways of speed:

How well you came to handle me

Coaxing every single horsepower out

Testing the limit quite breathlessly

Of both endurance and excitement

To extremes almost outrages.

I’ll admit I was always very demanding

Temperamental and highly strung

A sheer flirt with expensive tastes

Yet, the more idiosyncratic I became

The more you lavished love on me.

I’m a classic now and a rarity it seems

Very sought-after and highly collectable

I receive polite comments from onlookers

And the unsavoury advances of a few

Ridiculously waving money at my owner.

I have suffered no lack of investment

I’ve even been called expensive folly

But with my rev counter nudging the red

And this driver willing and agile again

What cost can you place on a heartbeat?

05 Take away this heart

Take away this heart once mine by right

Think this: it shall beat no more beats alone:

Though hidden from mine it has taken flight

Out of sight and sound it shall turn to stone

Calcified is the burden shared and twinned

That harmony of lost love’s sad lament

Plays a silent duet clear in the mind

In this distress its final days be spent

I know this because it beats like mine

To the slowing of labour’s rhythm spent

The dying ends of old beginnings divine

No more the mortal way to lovers lent

Thus, hearts beating together though parted

Will together end as each beat had started.

06 Shall I compare thee

Shall I compare thee any other way?

Fair as a secret once kept so lonely

Was not the loving bud of darling May?

Ever so crushed by a one so comely

Thy heart’s eternal shame forever then bade

Possession of repentant lowered shields

Against daytime bright or night’s dimly shade

By chance of Nature to thy honour yields

That thy eternal love shall linger on there

Glowing embers of flame long dwindled

No love in this life will a heart compare

Nor a mortal fire those flames rekindle

Until I cannot breathe and fail to wake

So long lives this unbearable heartache.

07 Love and hate

You should know I love you and hate you too

Perhaps hate is much too strong a word for it

And love! Well, tell me what other word will do?

Love and hate under the circumstances just fit

I miss you desperately but avoid you with precision

Perhaps desperate is much too pathetic a word

To coin an emotion that attracts so much derision

The combination of missing and avoiding is absurd

The morning sun rises only to set against the pall

Of evening sending twilight into complete