There are always guys

There are always guys

Who will tell you

How well they’ve done

How many people they know

Who can be relied upon

To do them a favour.

Every time life is good

They get a knife and dig it right in

Twisting it a little deeper

With excessive delight

Just to keep you believing that you will

Never be better,

Make more or live a bigger

Brighter life.

What is it with these people?

That they haunt the same bars

Drink the same whisky

Have damp patches under

Saville Row arms

Tom Ford

Shirt buttons ready to burst

Stretching over stomachs barely concealed

Expressing a belief that they are god’s gift

Why do they insist rugby is a gentleman’s game,

Unlike football,

Played at all the best schools

And how good they were

In a rolling maul

“I would have made it

Until my knee went southwest.”

Not that it hinders them

In the bullpen

Why do they always smell

Of burgers and sweat.

Use a toothpick

But still have breath that can strip paint

From a wall at five paces.

I try to avoid them

Sitting alone, nursing a beer

Keeping my head down

All to no avail

They all pile in,

Clap me hard on the back

Just as I lift a glass

Laughing like drains

As it spills down my shirt

Squeezing my arm until it hurts

Don’t you hate it when somebody ruffles your hair

As if they are your better

Like that geography teacher

Who used a slipper

To make his point

And threw chalk like a bullet.

Clipped a kid so hard with the back of his hand

He fell to his knees

He always smelled of whisky and cheese

Had a desk full of fungal disease.

I would hate to see him now

My guess is he didn’t do well

When they banned smoking

In the staff room

The air was too heavy to breathe.

Much like it is in the pub

When the dickheads and hooray's

Splash their cash

All over the place

Stinking out the joint

With lager-than-life bonhomie.

Breaking open the Chamfers

After a day of closing deals

Taking money from donkeys

And doing far better than I ever will.

Or so they keep saying

Until I get up and leave

Wringing the beer slops out of my sleeve

Thankful to slip

Away quietly

Undercover of a rugby song

Assured that they will never miss me,

Nor I, them.