I don’t dwell on the whiskey burn
Or on lager-foamed lips
Rouge lipstick mark hints
Of a bruise to form and swell
You say you remember it well
Of me doe-eyed, above the glass
That captured a moment passed
Sleuth youths with young lungs
Huff up Villier’s smoke - so cool
Smirking, as we watch the girls
In vintage skirts, they coyly twirl
With kindling eyes and Gordon’s wine
In shy reply.
Echoes of the night before
Slowly fade in violet hours.
What’s so inviting under Arches
Now clatters back to the Strand,
Away from Embankment
And stolen midnight kisses.
So to remove a part of me
Is to remove a world of Pride.
A journey not yet run its course,
A journey not at its hearse
;
For if it is not alright
,
Then it is not yet the end.
Without due care I flick the end
Towards the river well
.
It roars and sighs,
By the ‘friar,
Past the Tower,
And Shadwell,
All through Rotherhithe.
It’s not the end, it’s not the end
.
For we go on and on
Just like the Thames.
