Something for the fruit flies;
something for the pain:
a little pill – 20mg
to get me through each day.
Another rat has appeared
dead beneath the sink;
I sink into my overdraft
to get my round of drinks.
Now my body doesn’t look
like a young man’s does
from sitting in an office,
two hours on the bus.
So when will I grow up,
and what will I become?
Being twenty in your thirties
is not really so much fun.
The parties, the kebabs,
the late night chats
in corridors, in halls,
with unadorned walls.
The confidantes, the friends
I’ll never meet again.
The growing, its pains,
the drugs and drinking games.
The laughter, the drama,
the election with Obama.
The marches and the demos,
now all photos,
mementoes.
You said on a certain site
that you missed
a certain someone.
Your friends replied with jokes
I didn’t understand.
Was it your new boo
one of them mentioned,
a week or so ago?
That writing on your wall
took me somewhere unfamiliar:
a metropolis,
high rises towering,
windowpanes reflective,
security guards stood sentry
in opulent doorways.
Do they look out inside?
I cannot see them.
Yet fortunes
have been made,
from the words
we have all written.
I long for something true.
Like your hot tears
on my naked back,
the first time
I tried to end things
between us.
No one knows
how that felt
except the me
that was with you
in those encrypted moments,
that sped by
at fibre-optic speed,
one by one by one.
We send our little satellites
to revolve around each other,
and stealthily collect information
on exactly where land
gives way to the ocean.
But as terra incognito diminishes,
will we only gain knowledge
at the loss of wonder?
In many towns in the UK where you can walk freely at night
without fear of being in anyway accosted,
people seldom do.
The only light and life you see
are the headlamps of the occasional passing car,
and TV screens flickering through darkened windows.
Everyone is inside, somewhere.
Dick Denham 