After Mario Santiago Papasquiaro & Shane MacGowan
It was Christmas Eve in the drunk tank
1 blown fuse said:
Suicide is the only weapon I have against God,
so let’s run across the motorway / e5 /
& tightrope walk by canals / all veins of black ink /
& go to the worst kinds of pubs to die,
so you can put it in their hands.
So he gave up the wheel to sherry & screwtop wine & snakebites,
but I didn’t die.
Now here I am / almost XXX /
with nothing to show
except burnt bridges and gutter hymns
which no one reads / but that doesn’t really matter /
Why be a legend / when you can be an anonymous grave /
in solidarity with the nameless dead of history
/ Coming up next, a mix from the Charles Parnell collective /
Even if there’s any record,
they’ll have to tipp-ex in the good parts.
The time is 4:14 in the winter afternoon,
the setting sun is so you can see the light go out.
The time is 4:14 in the morning,
the sunrise is so you can see the ruins.
A poet’s supposed to be a thief of fire,
but I settled for other people’s drinks
/ & goodwill // & faith /
& time.
1 run down engine,
but I might still have a relapse or two left in me.
No point in the big metaphors:
I was just an alley cat,
with a bird in its mouth / lurching bile /
You expect me to go back to work?
No thank you:
my spine stiffens in service / I might as well be standing still /
The shop floor is just another place to stagnate.
My life is just nothing happening
on a loop
and even that’s better than work / cos it’s my void to move in /
But it doesn’t matter,
even if I wasted most of the sonnet’s lines
on nonsense
& cruelty.
People tell me I’m wasting my life / I don’t care /
Waste it all.
Waste talent.
Waste love (in the abstract)
Waste your hopes.
Waste your seed on the hotel floor.
Waste the substance and let shadows fill the empty space.
Waste the chance of an easy life. Waste your chance of a comfortable future.
Write poems.
Rob a bank.
The old maxim: the outsider’s life at any cost,
so waste whatever’s left in the tank.
