Do you sing

Do you sing

Happy or sad songs?

They can be defining.

Even for the moment

It takes to recognise

The tune

Bleating on a stack of tea chests

In a sawdust pub

Grinding out a ballad

Fit to burn holes in the sorriest heart

Old men cower in corners

The madcap with the squint

Covers his ears

To all but the strangest things

I ever heard

But it takes all kinds

Of everything to juice the sauce.

I can make music

Out of thin air

The whistle in a toilet

Tells me someone’s there

We are in harmony

Even for the time it takes

To pass the hat

For the pain in the ass

Singing Danny Boy

For the thousandth time

When he is third generation

Kentish Town

The Irish runs through him

As deep as the Liffey.

Next up will be the redhead

From Hampstead

Who sounds like Amy Winehouse

After a fight in a butcher shop

I would rather be in rehab.

I get away

The sound of screaming

From the corner

Tells me the drink

Has awakened a demon

In the old guy

With the cabbage patch face

He has PTSD

And always reacts

To the siren singer in black

With a flashback

To Normandy

Where he went on his holidays

And planted a foot

On the soil

Where his brothers lay

It didn’t cure his affliction

But steadied his hand

Enough to raise a glass

To his lips

As the redhead wiggled her hips

To the beat

And I escaped

With little spillage

Into the street

With the jaywalkers

And nighthawkers

Giving it all away

For another turn of the wheel

When even a small mercy

Is seen as a second-hand version

Of the real deal.