Dear, thanks for your letter
Sounds like you're living the way you wanted
And that makes me smile
No, I hadn't heard Bjorn Borg retired

Thank God one of us has a finger on an sporting pulse
No records left to collect your complaint
Well, Borg, Brolin and an unknown tennis trainer
Released something recently
No doubt your contacts in the Stockholm underworld
Can source that gem

Got back the other day to find the pub
On the corner had been burnt down
A dark London street story, I won't burden you with now
Determined as I am to write you some life affirming ****

And not drag you an a regular trawl
Through the night seas to find what crawls
Yet I know they're casting their lots to see
Who can get the old pubs' lease
And turn it into more luxury flats

Brick by brick the infiltration has begun
I feel moved to take a spray can
And ending step to the boarding
But as yet I can't think of anything witty
Or on point enough to be up there

Yet the drunkards still own the park
D's still there in your old flat making beats
And still owns the night
While this street can still shape shift
And make you quicken your pace on a late night return

So I suppose we still have time
But make no mistake my friend
I'm sure some barricade somewhere has started calling

I'm so sorry we missed each other
When you last came to town
I heard from Ndeye you sat with her
Telling stories for three hours while
And he put some extensions in a client's hair

She told me about Cuba, cigars and sacred drums
Of arguments in bars, Dante
The color of Christ and the only true poet
The South China Seas
Remembered Fa Yung, the Buddhist master

'How can we obtain truth through words?'
When she quoted your, 'Immature writer's plagiarize
Mature writers steal'
I was back in a bar in New York, Lower East Side
When you shouted that at

Maybe it was yourself, maybe I wasn’t there
Maybe it's slipped down between the years
My memory isn't exactly all that now
But my friend, you definitely have a convert there

And if you ever need your hair braiding
And I know that's a long shot then she's your girl
As my man scratch or maybe Rakim or maybe Monk
More probably all of them at some stage said
'You gotta check the new style'

I'm ***uming you are still running
An old testament blades to hair ratio
And it hasn't fallen rudely out on you
If that's the scenario then my sincerest apologies

Saw Mr. Brenan in the Holloway road yesterday
Walked past with a bag of potatoes on his shoulders
I didn't stop him he wouldn't have a clue who the hell I was
He didn't back then
When we'd spent month's sleeping on his sofa

Explaining which one of his son's friends we were
Well, that's the price you pay
For any more than six children in the Holloway road area

I think of you often
And hope we see each other again as soon as possible
Until such time may the winds be at your back
The dice be kind and the gods turn the occasional blind eye

Sincerely yours
Beyond the clouds
Beyond the son
The rebel without a cause