Now

Last night: perceiving through liquid overflow.
Myself as the sound of too much chatter.
Now: The imagined ideas of staring others;
A backward twist of the belly blade.

The night we didn’t...

I found this in an empty folder on my computer, don't know if it's unfinished or perfectly formed.

You lured me out late

From that drunken hole

I had dug pretty deep

On the docile settee.

You said it was a night for danger,

So I changed my pants and travelled

Through the night on a train:

A pioneer with a can of cider for courage.

That night we didn’t know if the future

Was a minor chord floating on

A wisp of drunkenness...

Sometimes

The day approaches again

And views me slightly askance

Thoughtless thoughts maintain

The pointlessness of the dance

Cider seems like a balm

But one that wants to destroy

My sense of ‘reality calm’

And the wish of the hoi polloi

Too much enjoyment is banned

Hiding is a must, a necessary skill

No one will know you’re a man

Shhhh shhhhhhh mentally ill

Words don’t like the light

Slouching and folding in

Enduring the slow darkening night

Tragic draw of a violin

To be honest I can’t discern where

The future will spit me out

All I can do is gawp and stare

And quiver with fear and doubt

Illegal in Leicester Square

The darkness sloshed up and down in our heads as the night sky rose before us over the newly refurbished Leicester Square - all the metal struts and luminous men had been cleared away leaving a great expanse that hadn't been glimpsed in quite some time. ALD and I stood on the kerb-like plinth that now bordered the main tumult of people that spurted incongruently from Piccadilly and Covent Garden; the marching bodies all met in the middle like some kind of disorganised, half-hearted, mediocre consumer battle. We watched and spoke our soaked words into each others faces, fresh from the pub we had decided on a tour of London's most obvious facial features and hence here we stood in the square, cans of cider in hand, swaying to the movement of the liquid playing sweet cacophonies inside our craniums. We turned to look into the area of grass at the centre, now locked up. We discussed how the fence keeping people out was pathetically short, about a meter high, we followed that with a short confab about how high we would each be able to urinate over the said fence. We turned back to facing the hoi polloi, just as two rather fresh-faced Community Support Officers were walking past, scanning with their hairless chins and bulbous eyes intent on ruining someone's fun; spotting us they looked at each other and with a nod of the head sashayed towards us.

'Did you know sir, that it is illegal to have an open container of alcohol in the borough of Westminster?'

'No', I replied, 'I didn't know that'.

'I'm afraid you are going to have to dispose of your drinks.' He wasn't afraid, but I was, the can was over half full, I searched for the magic words that would make the horrible men disappear - all I could hear was Westminster, Westminster, what if you leave Westminster as soon as possible. It seemed plausible. I would utter the words with a cheeky grin and Mr Officer would tut and raise his eyes and say, 'oh OK then, but be quick', at which point we would thank him and scuttle off into the crowd, safe to sup on our newly radicalised beverages and laugh at the stupidity of the repressive state apparatus.

Only something different happened, by the time the words had made their way to my lips, they weren't the gems I had initially found, but a rather offensive looking piece of coal.

'Yeah, but what if we run away.' The officer looked back with a seriousness I couldn't quite comprehend.

'Well, we'll chase you.' there was no smile no laughter, just a sombre stare. I tried again, I just didn't say it right, I held up my hands.

'No, No , No, I meant really quickly.' The coal had turned to shit, as if running away from the Officers really quickly would make them change their mind. I was trying to say one thing, but really saying quite another, I had to now give up didn't I? Yes, yes I did. ALD intervened and encouraged me to stop talking at which point we reluctantly tipped that most noble of liquids down into London's bowels through its grated eye ball; I guess London deserved it, putting up with all these people all day and their impossible dreams and dirty rubber soles. We put our empty cans in the bins and moved off into the crowd, liquor-less and chasing that subtle divergence in our splattered consciousness - I think it was annoyance.

London had won and I didn't begrudge it, the pavements seemed to smile that sloppy drunken grin and somehow I was pleased we had shared a drink - London was our melancholy comrade rolling and rising with the tides of our happily addled heads.

One drink for you, one for London, those are the new rules.

MG

Ego Destroyed

I went away on a human holiday, distant from London's broken smiling slabs. The shore I washed up on was a different world, a silent, night time place, uncluttered, unfiltered.
The place I went has a name but this label chokes in my throat, hardly a representation of the rich picturesque void that now exists in my mind; I shall rename it the blissoramic expanse; a parallel world hidden from the London consciousness, not good/ bad, urban/rural, profit/loss; but a different way of seeing, a suit of different colours, shades and style.
I shrank in its bosom and found myself covered in folds of a gentle unknown skin; the night joined me and my companions down a shadowy road as we walked to a pub 2 miles in the distance. The Drunken Duck Inn has a name and story only real life can create; later that night on the return journey I found myself shouting at the gloom: ‘Who shaved me? Why am I wearing a cardigan?’ in tribute to those legendary ducks.  London was long gone, the darkness the expanse and the audible characters from behind the hedge were all.
As I walked along the empty road I remembered, not an event or a place but a feeling, a solitary fullness, I looked up into dusky sky and it was there, like a warm fleece enfolding. The hills and the trees huddled round and joined my conspiracy. The thrill of being a lone figure in the night, a silhouette, no people for miles around, technology seeming like a strange dream, invisible.
The cool air at my face created energy for the nothingness. The absence of people, judging things, pressuring things, gave everything more life. I saw images in the gloom, shadows come to life, traders, highway men, families heading for the Inn; a timeless invisible history coming from the hedgerows. Everything was smooth and mysterious.
I became childlike, full of inspiration and hope. It wasn’t an epiphany; there weren’t any ecstatic moments, just a long drawn out feeling; no threatening presence, just the wilderness and its dark beyond.
This is the point, as always, that words fail and I have no reason to care, for they are part of the problem. I sank into the rustling, groaning, singing void of the no-thing.
I laughed and slipped between my companions, but, with London, they were long gone, whether they had joined me I’ll never know, but I will follow that path to the pub to the end of the sunset. Ego Destroyed.