WAR ZONE.

Wasn’t itching;
I’d scratched my thatch
Scrubbed so I felt no need to,
Was merely thinking about
My next move when the phone spoke.
It was one of the usual yawpers so
I said yeah yeah yeah and ditched them.
They never learn not to tell me shit
Even after I’ve asked them,
Especially this early:
The unremitting blink
Of non thinkers constantly amazes me.
I jigged with them by calling back,
Asking what they’d
Wanted, and they said hi, how you doing...
I mean...
I got up then anyway as I was about
To indulge myself before the blower went,
And it put me right off.
Took a look in the shower room and
Decided to dip my bits in the sink,
It being cleaner, believe me.
Dressed the best I could and
Left for a slug down the pub.
Nothing new to report there;
Another passing,
Another rude awakening for the landlord
The night before,
Another aggravated face broken,
Another tooth
For the fairy to loose amidst the weekend rush hour.
He asked what I wanted,
Which always spoilt my appreciation
Of the term ‘local’,
So I fucked with him a time
Before I said ‘The usual’,
Which he knew,
And settled in my booth to wait for the
Morning’s caller to inevitably arrive.
They topped and said man you look good,
Lost a little weight?
No I said, not intentionally,
Must be cancer.
What did I know?
Nothing as it happened,
But that’s no fault of mine or my knowledge:
Unless my body shuts down quick,
Or another’s does for me,
Or a suffocating amount of matter sticks to it accidentally,
Then I’ll go slow,
One night at a time
And welcoming;
Pitted against the wishes of greater faiths
Than mine,
Inside and out of my sphere of influence,
Dangling on the end of their little kitten strings and
Teasing them even more.
The odd day may get the better of me and
Your name frame a mention,
Your mother’s too,
But other than that
A few hundred lucky bastards will be glad
They didn’t ask how I was
As I dribbled out of sight
Without bothering theirs.
Reeling from the loss of one more summer,
Cricket tossed and football coming,
Should be worth the
While to miss another fun filled winter ritual.
But hopefully not today.
The moron ordered another
Round and sat down to tell me and
Himself, once again, his news.
He was an old friend,
But one you wouldn’t want to end
Your days sat next to on a weekend
Full Of Sundays.
He’d been married for twenty five years,
And he and his wife had decided from
The beginning to devote every sixth and
Seventh days to themselves;
Shuttling their glutted kids upwards
Upon arrival to an older generation
In order to be allowed them some me time.
Leather straps and chains were attached and
Reins were used to move them;
All sorts of porn,
Except the kiddie kind of course,
Was introduced,
And they swore its use was
Cathartic for their marriage.
So why he was here on
His sacred day intrigued me,
Seeing as on those weekends when
Either of them weren’t up to their perversions
They’d waste their time at the track
Or the game
Or in the company of lesser blameless conquests;
Switching partners
From a dish full of keys and
Discussing buggery with a bunch
Of hardcore anal-ists,
And afterwards
Teaching their kids the Importance
Of calculus.
Then they would simply forget,
From one day to the next,
Their actions;
Poor continuity.
At every stage in his misbegotten
Life he’d called all his cats Aslan
In the hope that one day,
One of them,
Would be,
But today he’d encountered a different
Witch to repel.
Apparently he’d come into contact
With a rat trap of a bag on the internet
Who looked like she’d
Stepped in a flesh pit
And found her way out, and he couldn’t
Convince her to leave him; so I did
As I needed to get through
The weekend in one piece
Because I’m at ease with myself,
Even if no one else is.