A six hundred and fifty word snapshot from a very long poem.
BUBBLY AS CHAMPAGNE
The day drags on, drinking pint for pint with Peter the pissed up painter
Artistic as Cézanne, sober as a hanging judge, nowhere to run
When nightfall comes we stagger to another bar for cocktails at eight
Outside and up there somewhere planets collide, new worlds are formed by thought
You know what thought did don’t you? I think he just thought he did what he did
Satellites are falling from the skies back down to earth like lead balloons
But the cranes are still going up to build more towers to scrape the skies
Bent as a plastic fiver, crooked as the Chesterfield church spire
More backhanders than a tennis bat, one racket after another
Everything’s computerised, what will people do when the power fails?
The Millennials and the generation before them have no clue
The three day working week, no electricity, and candles for light
It gets addictive; starving yourself for more than three days is not cool
The self congratulatory society annual big ball
And guess who turns up? All the grabbers, all of the tramps, and all the thieves
The old Jersey lighthouse looks magnificent, standing there in the rain
The Grand National at Aintree will never be quite the same again
Runners and riders jockey for pole position at the Tartan Bar
We watch the international at the Corbiere Pavilion
It’s Scotland v England and they beat us 2-1 we buy all their beer
Only the year before we thrashed the Scots at Wembley five goals to one
I used to drink in the Trafalgar and the Tenby at St Aubins
All the pubs were open from nine am until eleven pm
Some hotel bars were open all night and the beer was as cheap as chips
I worked at the Royal Yacht Hotel in Saint Helier for a while
And later at the Parade Bar where I met some crazy Jersey Beans
The head waiter at one place was a window cleaner from Wythenshawe
Deluded, waiting for the frost to thaw on a sunny summers day
Funny as a rocking horse rider on steroids, racing round the house
Bubbly as Champagne, fizzy as Cava, mad for it down in Dijon
Keen as mustard, fit as a butchers bitch on heat, fired up for the fight
Tooled up to the elbows, dressed up to the nines, if only looks could kill
Is commercialisation an imitation of reality?
The newscaster announces the capture of another terrorist
He says he is acting alone, but the devastation is so vast
A dozen organisations or so claim he was working with them
The flags remain at half mast as the president makes an announcement
‘The ceasefire is well and truly over, we will resume bombing soon’
The pilots scramble, and the ground crews kick start the jet engines over
The rebels, the terrorists, and the government troops blame each other
The superpowers can’t resist throwing in the Wellington for fun
Manipulating life, death, and eternity to win brownie points
Obnoxious as Baden Powell, with his Wolf Cubs, and the Boy Scout movement
I was the last Tawny Sixer and the First Red Sixer at Eleventh Sale Saint Joseph’s
Frightening as the Hitler Youth was, we would have beat them at football
Me and my street could have played for England, we trained outside every night
Five-a-side, seven-a-side, in the hockey nets at the tennis club
In nineteen sixty-six we beat North Korea at Worthington park
At Saint Aidan’s school we played football every day with a tennis ball
Two of the names I recall are, Antonio Bibby, and Chris Cain
I was a milk monitor, handing out the little bottles with straws
Mrs Harrison was the only shopkeeper open on Sundays
We would always stop to buy cream cheese, pickled gherkins, and kiełbasa
But the thing I liked the best was the cold milk machine outside the shop
UNFINISHED...
