While I’m finishing up …
I sit here, drunk already,
fag lost on lips, lager almost down,
left hand spidering the table,
picking out a rhythm
to kill Pink Floyd burbling from inside,
wondering what dumb fingers
jukeboxed that crap this time
of afternoon, wishing that to kill it
a big bus would crash
the pub’s depressing front
and leave only the bar and pumps
open to my eminence.
And I lig some time to cry, to fuck off
any worries I may have had
concerning my tomorrows, having
heard on coming in at noon
news of a pal from 20 years by,
fuck we used to drink hard,
he’s gone, went last night,
not unexpected, apparently,
but I don’t know how it could be ‘apparently’
cos none of us had seen him ages,
months some cases, me, years.
So, drunk now, but with my reason,
today at least, this afternoon
all a blow-out, no-one left
it seems almost, to say to,
fuck, another of us gone, who’s next?
And I imagine us all looking at each other
with nothing to answer
but lifted eyebrows, a shake of the head,
a pout of lips, nosescrunch, shrugs, sighs.
Pause, fuck, let’s have another, to celebrate,
to celebrate the fucker, all the times we had,
all the brainless stupid things we did,
the messes we got into,
how the hell we all got out of them,
we’ll have a laugh, we will, we’ll have a laugh,
the evening’s coming in better already,
just thinking on it, we’ll have a laugh.
And who knows,
by the night’s end a few of us
might even remember why we
never spoke no-more to the unlucky fucker,
and we’ll miss him, we’ll miss him
how he may never have thought we might,
certainly how many of us may never have,
and we talk about that, and cry a bit,
and own up to things and forgive it all,
cry a bit, and stay till 3 in the morning
under the stars, remembering long ago stars.