Nearly Victor Serge

I was nearly Victor Serge; Like him I  was also a 'dissident's dissident'. Everyone said I had the look of Basque Beatnik-frizzy hair, jaunty scarf and Trotsky glasses. I may not be working class but I can do a good scouse accent. I have published a book about him; I've tried be like him; sometimes I think I am him.
I know that part of me was with him at Kronstadt; I swear we were together at Petrograd when Trotsky's War Train steamed in and drove the Whites out. Together with Pankratov, Eltsin and other Trotkyist comrades we served our years in exile at Orenburg
I have lived by his code. I have served with The International Socialists (IS) in York and Leeds; Like he would have done I split with IS over entryism as I did over Hungary.
But recently he has grown more distant to me. I now realise Shipley cannot be Mexico. I've been going through some of his last papers and as I walked home last night by the Shipley canal V spoke to me:
  a night filled with stars; a darkness filled with you