I struggle

I struggle

With the concept of Spring in October.

Would I have understood

Life differently

Had I been born

On this side of the equator?

When all the songs were wrong

And it was October bustin’

Out all over.

About twenty years ago

Before the fall

The grieving

The upside-down world

In my hometown

It was full of strangers

Starring in their version

Of the good life

Which seemed to be just

As it was

The last time I was there

They were all old

Even the teenagers,

Who sat in a huddle,

Falling off the ends of cigarettes

Inhaling the poison with gusto.

It was a prison sentence

I got out

With good behaviour

Somebody slapped my back

Said ‘Hi mate.”

I didn’t recognise him.

He hugged me as you would

A lifebelt

I caught my dad’s eye

And he mouthed his name

‘Hi Scotty.’ I struggled to say

Through broken ribs.

We played football together

About two stones lighter

And with more hair

‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

He boomed

‘You neither.”

I lied.

‘Still got the patter then.’

I didn’t know what to say to that

I was a psychologist

Sometimes it was better to say nothing.

He was a banker

Or something along those lines.

The noise of wheelchairs squeaking

Across the dancefloor

Interfered with my hearing.

He lived in a loft conversion

The old workhouse

Behind the pumping station

Picked it up for chips,

(which he still ate

Out of the paper on the way home.

I can’t argue with that)

He had it interior designed

Sold off two other flats

Made himself a fortune

Invested in Crypto

Before Musk

He laughed out loud

When I asked if it was haunted

The stain on the floor

From sweat and blood

Was still there

‘They add character. Tell a good story

When I entertain the ladies.’

I wondered which ladies

Would be foolish enough to go

Back to his place

I remember the brickwork

I always thought it was

A gas chamber.

He looked more like Mussolini

Than Dorian Gray

But then who can say

What moves a person

To sell their souls

For the sake

Of making good

On a promise to

Prove the careers adviser wrong.

The tears of dead children

Would always stain the walls

Of the workhouse

I would never sleep

For the sound of weeping

And Scotty would never

Play for Sunderland

But then neither would I

It’s more than half a world away.