A pariah,
a parasite,
a fugitive
with no fixed address,
money or provisions,
these blue grey eyes
topped by
a spiked blonde crop,
belong to a stranger
to everyone but trouble,
the charming villain of the piece.

In bright
midday sunlight
warming the back of my hand,
smoke twists round
my fingers’ black edges
twitching on an ashtray’s rim.

Golden shards
bounce off its cut glass
and illuminate
the right side of my face
but leave
the left side in shadows;
filling
my arched brow’s furrows,
sinking into my sallow cheeks.

Today
may be young
but I’m drunk as hell
and sick and tired
of listening to
happy hour philosophers
and staring at the same picture
hanging on the too-white wall.

Yeah, I see you,
you bloody fool:

sitting at the back of a bar alone,
half obscured
by the darkness that surrounds you,
eyes pointed up at a painting
lit up by beams
shining through a small window.

What the hell
are you looking at?

The shopping crowd,
jostling in the street outside
and the plastic gangsters,
part-time crooks,
wide-eyed old men,
and morning after wrecks
putting the world to rights inside.

My laughter smears
with the squares of light
across the sticky floor.

Shut up.

There is no truth, beauty or grace here.
Nothing that will outlast our tawdry days.
All your posturing is absurd.

Do you think anybody cares?

Smash the bottle. Pick up the chair.

I don’t.

Get the hell out of here
before I tear away the separation,
slash the space between us
and cut off your balls and fry them in oil.

You want a vision of paradise?

There ain’t none in this damned place.

Too proud to be humble, too strong to be tender,
it’s going down man,
down,
down,
down.