Four Poems inspired by Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’
Running through puddles backwards
The flying can of Red Stripe, an escape from clammy palms.
My attention dwells on people stomping in a foamy puddle -
Some straddle the wet, like tourists on The Greenwich Meridian.
Others walk backwards,
rewound on a video cassette with the
most appropriate of specs and fuzzy jumps.
Grroosss
For the entirety of tonight
I wait to listen her half heard mumblings.
The imagined conversations we had together always sound better
than the scant nourishment of small talk.
Free from the kitchens,
the radical clang of ladle against pan
we move to the music
with swaying sunflower arms.
Our limbs strike fellow revellers
in a tender, sweaty way.
You and I
had nothing special tonight.
I get off the floor
Rejoice! For the night has been survived.
Trample back to the den.
The burning soles
and the boxer shorts that seem to have found an uncomfortable space.
Adjust! And hope the night doesn’t end in tears and ill-judged scribbles
on a pizza box with a ‘free’ pen you nicked from the Post Office.
The yellow shirt on the other side of the street was a safe distance away from me.
I spat on the floor and pissed up the wall.
You can get away with those kind of anti-social expressions at nearly three o’clock in the morning.
The demons of doubt waft in from the West.
Stirring the pot, filling my head with bad ideas.
Your head talks back.
Let’s make a phone call to somebody who has forgotten all about you.
So much so that this is no longer their number.
The next morning my garlic mayo scented gibberish greets
the voicemail of a bloke called Keith.
The door slams shut
And God saw him as a flawed man with good intentions.
His lungs filled with hope,
his eyes blind to reality.
Lulls. Time passed.
They remember bits and pieces.
You remember the fleshed out gory details.
You made sacrifices,
and never noticed
the essential part of life.
Never sketching shadows on the wall under lamp light.
Never whispering autumnal poetry to a pale ear,
nor watching a belly expand and deflate.
A hangover reminds me of the moments of time that are lost.
It’s the only adequate time I have to reflect on this.
Nothing better to do
then attempt to recover my wits.
Rich Wink is a poet based in the United
Kingdom. His latest book 'Uno Mas' is a collaboration with Ben John Smith, Ryan
Quinn Flanagan and James Gerrard. You can purchase it here -
