As memories rise too, sharp as a knife:
The porch of Peter’s Church, his student loan
And, oh God, did he suck Fat Kenny’s prick?
He’s overwhelmed. It’s all too much, too quick.
Den retches and with a despairing moan,
In its entirety, throws up his life
For some few minutes, doubled in a crouch,
Then flushes. In the rattling pipes, trapped air
Bellows in anguish like a minotaur.
Mouth wiped, Den clumps back down to the ground floor
And the mauve gloom of a hushed front room where
Fat Kenny still sleeps, supine, on the couch,
Extinguished pipe clasped in one pudgy hand.
Though keen to leave, Den feels it only right
To say goodbye. “I’m off, then.” No reply.
He notices a flat, green-bellied fly
Orbit the still, shaved skull and then alight
But though he sees he does not understand
Why his host shows no sign of coming round.
“I said I’m going.” Den begins to feel
Uneasy and as he steps closer spies
The motionless breast and unblinking eyes.
With realisation comes a shattering peal
Of sudden dreadful and incessant sound,
A circling and swooping banshee roar
That shivers glass and sets dogs barking but
Appears to have no source save him. Den screams,
An improvised Kurt Schwitters piece that seems
Expressive although inarticulate
And backs in the direction of the door
Which, unlocked, yields at once and opens wide
Whence dazzling rays pour through the gaping hatch
To blind him. Crumpled sleeping-bag forgot
And slammed door ringing like a rifle shot,
Den takes off without bothering to snatch
His shit-smeared sneakers from the step outside
Or to look back. In truth, he doesn’t dare.
The grass is cold and wet — Den has no socks —
As he sprints past the tower blocks — nor a plan —
But then in Crispin Street he spots a man
Whose pale blue eyes and thinning flaxen locks
Are oddly reminiscent, but from where?
Upon Den’s lips unspoken epics burn
And seek release, drugged visions that might be
As those of Coleridge, Cocteau, Baudelaire.
By now he’s reached the guy with sparse blonde hair
Who eyes the gasping boy uncertainly
And asks “Are you alright, mate?” with concern
Made clear. Is Den alright? Aye, there’s the rub,
He thinks, one with De Quincy and Rimbaud,
Preparing for an image-jewelled account
To spill forth as though from some Bardic fount
But all he can come out with is “Yes. No.
Fuck me. Oh, fuck me, I was up the pub.
That’s where I’ve been all night, up in the pub.”
His mouth won’t stop. “They wouldn’t let us go.”
Won’t pause. “Fuck me. Fuck me, mate, help us out.
It was a pub”, as if that were in doubt,
Language bereft of any metered flow
With words recurring, echoing like Dub
Through burned-out ganglia. The stranger’s stare
Is quizzical. “Hang on, you’ve lost me, mate.
Was this a lock-in, then, this pub they kept
You at all night?” Although Den’s barely slept
He knows the man is trying to judge his state
Of mind. “Which was it, anyway? Up where?”
“Up there. Up in the roof. I mean the pub.”
Den babbles, but the blond man nods his head.
“Up in the roof? Yeah, I’ve had that”, and then
He mentions, in the corners, little men.
Den strains to comprehend what’s just been said,
Brain washed, or at least given a good scrub.
“Yeah. Up the corners. They were reaching down.”
Seeming to understand the man takes out
Some cigarettes and offers one to Den
With calm acceptance bordering on Zen
Then lights both. Den squints. What is it about
This quarter of the unforgiving town
That brings such things? His saviour tells him how
He isn’t mad but will take time to mend;
Provides more cigarettes; offers a tip
On where to rest, suggesting a small strip
Of grass with trees at Scarletwell Street’s end,
Adding “They’ll be in blossom around now.”
With syllables become a syllabub
Den calls his benefactor a good bloke
And thanks him, starting to walk off downhill
But looking back to find the stranger still
Observing him. Den, brunt of some cruel joke,
Calls helplessly “I was just up the pub”,
Then carries on down the long slope again,
Barefoot, skirting jewelled spreads of powdered glass,
To the T-junction at the bottom where
A single house stands near the corner there
Amid a great amnesia of grass,
Its presence making a stark absence plain
Yet with no clue as to whose residence
It is, its windows with closed curtains hung.
Beneath trees further on he takes a seat,
With freight-yards making the dressed set complete,
Where hunkered on damp grass he picks among
The lyric rubble of experience
In search of rhymes. The solitary abode
Stands punctuating the erased street’s end,
Closing a quote since lost to a mute past.
Lighting his cigarettes each from the last
Den lives and breathes and tries to comprehend
The dead man in his house just up the road,