How The Street Found Us

We all used to smoke, the kids don’t know that. It made us feel like cowboys and we listened to the Rolling Stones when they were cool. 

Back then we were drinking too much cheap brandy, burning weed in tight rolls and wearing too many colours, but life was short and you only ran once.

And no one wrote stories about sober old men, no, our heroes lived short flights through burning crimson skies and died in lead thunderstorms.

Our mamas would call our names but we’d get as much of the streetlights as we could before we had to eat.

And the laughter it carried our souls into the African setting sun through the dust and the smoke of every hard day. Back then we counted these moments like currency and paid for every second of our short lives.

   

The Cold Distant Hope

The poet on the balcony puts the freshly lit cigarette into his mouth and drags deeply. On days like this he begs for cancer.

He remembers a young man with hope on his lily, white-washed brain, he would be one of the free, those who take on the world and win. But now look at this, living in the flat where he was born, with a failed marriage and kids who don’t even call.

He knows better now. He’s in the greater percentage of unfortunates for whom life is just the misery between getting smacked in the arse by a doctor and dying surrounded by strangers you once called family.  Fuck it he could improve the situation right now by just climbing over this rail. 

He never does, like most he prefers to die slow, so he goes back to get his fill of shitty TV, food from plastic containers, and discounted booze. And the ass-hole on the screen makes a joke and the poet laughs cause that’s what’s expected and he laughs until he cries because the whole world is fucking empty.