FOUR DAY WEEKENDS MEAN TROUBLE

My weekend started on Wednesday afternoon

But it took me until Saturday morning before I’d drank

Myself calm, to the point where I could just sit and

Think, postulating on some words and wondering

Where I’m going

Last night was fun, like a flashback to the start of

The millennium when an old friend came to visit

And she was on ecstasy and drunk whilst me, well, I’d

Relapsed again and was on the weed and drinking

And we wandered the North Laine

Going from bar to bar her accent attracted the wrong

Kind of attention as finally at the last stop she was

Refused service as they claimed she was too drunk

But I just knew and explained it away and soon we were

Supping lovingly a gorgeous beer

Before she went back to her hotel and I continued

My walk back home, stopping for beer and chaser

And some wild rock’n’roll in a pub that haunts my

Words as I’ve written about shit going down there

Many times before.

A GOOD BOY DISAPPEARS

It was sad news that greeted me that wistful

Thursday night as word came through of another

Lost to his mind which had been ravaged by

His short torturous life.

An old friend sent me a text asking about him

Had I seen him around?

Yes I said, the other week I ran into him in the library

As I was heading out to work and he didn’t seem too well

Yes came my friends’ reply who had seen him

A couple of days after I had but what came then

Was even worse than even I could have envisioned

As he told the story from the intervening time

He burnt down his flat and yet no one has

Heard from him since, his sister who lives

Nearby hadn’t heard a word and his parents

Worried sick had reported him missing to the police

But what is there to do, the last time we talked

He was keen on the opium and I knew some distance

Had to be placed between us but not if it ended up

Like this with him missing and everyone worried

And thoughts of what has he done since we’d

Been so tight.  His life had clearly taken a bad turn

And now I wish I’d stuck with him

Even if it meant I could just keep an eye on him.

A MAD WOMAN WHO THINKS SHE’S UNIQUE

I was at work yesterday when this crazy lady came in, started shouting at a child who wanted a bit of chocolate

It weren’t even her kid and she then started ranting at a colleague of mine about her distress and her awful life

I stepped in and told her it was her behaviour that was causing the trouble and she stood and simply began screaming

I fessed up and told her I was a recovering drug addict and that really sent her over the edge

“What are you doing working at all?”

Well I got a postgraduate degree I tried to explain and the government thought I was fit to work

I told her to shut up as she had no idea of true suffering and pain and she threw down her shopping

Stormed out our shop and then the mother of the aforementioned child said thanks and apologised for her child’s behaviour

I simply smiled and said no worries as I do with most of my customers and slowly things returned to normal

As my colleagues congratulated me on dealing with this horrid woman who now doubtless will tell anyone who will listen

That my shop is full of over-qualified drug fiends who shouldn’t be working, now how she expects me to survive I frankly don’t care

Because her type will always go mad and die alone as she works out that maybe her life ain’t the hardest of all in this town

Where madness and drugs rule so many lives...

RUN ON INSTINCT (AS SIRENS WAIL)

A night just like any other when I’m stood outside a bar

Smoking a roll-up, drinking my beer and I look around

At this wasted scene

A homeless drunk lies prone on the floor

Under a sleeping bag

Designed to keep him warm

But over to the left is a gang of kids

About half-dozen of them

Hoods in place

Mobile phone blasting out some tinny R’n’B

Back where I came from

They’d be the kind who hustle you down

Steal your money

Or threaten to knife you if you didn’t obey

But in this town I just stay until my roll-up has finished

Because these kids ain’t like the ones who bothered me back then

And I laugh as a siren wails and suddenly they run off

Back to their middle-class homes

As an ambulance speeds up Queens Road

They are nowhere to be seen

There are plenty of types in this town who you do have to worry about

But not tonight as I’m still drug-free and my mind runs lucidly

The kids in this part of town will never concern me

HUMAN WASTE

On a break at work and I stand outside my shop

Smoking a smoke and taking in the scene

It’s late and I don’t come round this way at this time of night

So I get a chance to see, the chance to view the human geography

The nightmare of twenty-first century life here in the developed world

North Street, Brighton on a Wednesday night

A homeless street musician plays a song about no one liking him

As people walk pass him looking down their noses in disdain

Destroying their idea of these so-called civilized times

Next to me is sat a couple, they look like real rough sleepers

As the woman sits pushing on a pimple on her cheek as

The man next to her seems to be so exhausted he can’t do anything but sleep

All this whilst sat outside an Oxfam shop begging for donations

Standing orders, direct debits is all they care for

Whilst our heroic couple just hunker down hoping for a warm night

And enough money to get some food in the morning

A mad eyed tramp comes in my shop and collects his coppers together

All in a bid to get some form of nicotine

‘What’s your cheapest baccy?’ he asks as he counts out nearly 3 quid

In nothing but 1s, 2s and 5 pence pieces

It’s clearly been a hard day for him and the life from here

As summer turns to autumn is going to get nothing but harder

For this is so-called living in contemporary Britain.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON CLEAN & BORED

It’s the afternoons when I ain’t out at work that drags real long and it’s hard to think of what to do when there ain’t any drugs to do

I could go to the bar but it’ll be empty as happy hour don’t start for another hour and on a Tuesday afternoon time drags real slow

Even when you got a beer

What I really need to keep my mind wandering off to old bad habits is just some fucking company

But when all the people I know are either working on something or out of town or worse yet

Recovering alcoholics who you don’t want to see

As I’ve always been labelled a bad influence and hell all I want to do is drink to forget this self-proclaimed exile from mental insanity