"plughole" poems
You say, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”
but I say surely something
must taste nicer than the burning acid
being forced back up your throat.
Why not hug people instead of
toilet bowls? At least they’ll hug back.
Except Mia is your only friend now.
And her cousin, Ana, of course.
And I understand that you never
wanted to die, but this is a thousand ton truck
hurtling towards the edge of a cliff and
Ana took the wheel a long time ago.
There is no strength in this: in you, in a
fear of calories. Even your bones creak
as your muscles sigh with exhaustion -
for this, is not a war you're winning.
This is a battle with only one contender
and I will not be the one to disarm you.
That's your job and it always has been. I know
you only wanted to be beautiful
like all those stars in the magazines
you saved under a file titled ‘thinspo’
but the only stars you ever saw were in
your eyes from the dizziness
and to tell you the truth, you are not pretty.
For there is nothing “pretty”
about the layer of fuzz your body grew
to protect itself from the big bad wolf
when really, the only growl was coming
from inside your stomach.
Or how your little sister is afraid to touch,
let alone hug you, in fear of snapping you in two.
For there is no glamour in having to
remove clumps of hair out of the plughole
at least six times whilst having a shower,
just to let the water run down.
Or that one time you "accidentally”
took too many laxatives. Messy.
There is nothing admirable about the way
you sat shivering on your bed
at night instead of kissing boys,
or dancing, or eating ice cream.
There is nothing to be marvelled at
in dying.
This, is not a life to be lived.
God, this isn't even a life.
This is being a slave to your own body,
a walking zombie, a ghost stuck
between two sides.
You are not alive.
But it was all still worth it, right?
Slowly killing yourself from the inside out.
A small price to pay for perfection,
a bargain for a broken mirror;
for a half-written book
with 97 blank pages,
a camera
that only captures in black and white,
a clock
with frozen hands.
And most importantly, for a peace of mind
you never received.
No refunds.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
If only you’d done the washing up
I wouldn’t be slamming plates into the sink
Half sobbing
Half seething
Stubbornly burning my hands on water that’s too hot
Angrily scrubbing at three day old tomato sauce
And bits of chips and jumbo sausage that have welded themselves to the plate
If only you’d done the washing up
We could have *** later
But we can’t now
Because I’ll be too tired and bitter after doing the washing up
Again
Do you think I like washing up?
Don’t you think I’d rather be sitting on the sofa
Watching crap on the telly
Safe in the knowledge that the sink is empty
The plughole is clean
And the worktops are sparkling
I bet Beyonce doesn’t have to do the washing up
I bet she has a dishwasher
If only you’d done the washing up
You wouldn’t need to call me childish
For getting worked up over something as silly as the washing up
And I wouldn’t be standing here wondering
If you’ll ever really get it
“It’s only the washing up” you say
Exactly
So just ****** well do it next time
********
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 11:58 AM UTC
Somewhere in this town there is man with his feet bare.
He has spent the last hour staring at his toothbrush and trying to remember how to leave this room.
His fists hold fingers that are twisted into paleness:
Like jaws too small for adult teeth.
The bathtub gapes up at him, yawning in his peripheral vision,
He remembers that two feet are just as good as six when it comes to sinking.
He never did learn how to swim, but
Like a fish out of water knows
The sea can make short work of accidental sailors
And the gurgle of a tap can sound like the tide coming in.
The bathroom mirror is not kind to him:
His imperfections make apologies he simply won’t accept.
Ribs forming corrugations on his t-shirt, as though his bones are trying to escape from the confines of his skin.
The porcelain lip of the sink continues to pout, its expression a perfect ‘O’.
The plughole is wearing lipstick today; blood red,
As it has been every day of this week.
Thoughts are like spiders webs, he thinks, constructed by moonlight then torn down in the morning
Occasionally he’ll still catch the dew.
In the sterile light of an eco friendly bulb, he holds the mirror back with both hands, one hinge broken.
He wears his heart on his sleeve, cufflinks cutting off his circulation.
In the shadow of the cabinet, are kept row after row of soldiers he uses to fight off his demons
And below that another regiment to handle the effects of the others.
He says, “All I am now is a synonym; and alternative to what I used to be.”
As alive is in likeness to living.
As the sun is, to the infertile glow of his grandfathers TV.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 1:40 PM UTC
I waterfall my fingers down my throat
and wriggle them like they’re alive,
like I’m nineteen years old again,
trying to prove that I’m the cool girl
with no gag reflex.
The shower runs on boiling hot
and if I stand, I might fall,
so I’m taking the hair-infested plughole
as my date to the dance,
once I’m done with the black hole left in its absence.
My fingers are uncomfortably water-warm
and if I close my eyes, it feels so good,
like the first time I realised there was a clenched fist
inside my stomach that I could begin
to uncurl.
When I think about it, it’s like ************
It’s something I wouldn’t talk about in Church
and it’s something I should only do behind closed doors.
A lot of things are like ************ in that way,
like being gay, and cutting my own hair, and whatever this is.
It’s a distraction.
It’s something to do when the list of things to be done
is the same every day, when the doors are perpetually
shut and the clenched fist will always be clenched
once rigor mortis has set in.
Jul 17, 2021
Jul 17, 2021 at 8:47 PM UTC
"Fitter Happier"
"more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter **** (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics"
- A song by Radiohead. I did not write this.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 11:31 PM UTC
The Queen of Absentia rises from royal
stool to watch the moon set sheathed
in broiling cloud as she skips whirling
adders that hiss in fat jagged coils, their
hollow blades jutting death in sprinkler
sprays of misting veils and her
head is hypethral; a Gaudi shipping
container soldered in reptile curves,
licked by arrowheads of falcate flame
as she rounds its laughing corners;
an adderaled lab rat, eyes black funnels
drinking electrodes pulsing crimson and
the stars are crackling in the pan as she
sees planets torn shrieking down Hell’s hungry
plughole as fallen Gods divide by zero
and the clock’s skittering claws scratch
prophecies of consequence of poorly
sewn seams, but she smiles like a risen
crocodile and says,
‘you’re just jealous cos the
voices only talk to me.’
And again she dives as unwanted
advice gibbers up out snapping drains,
and power points shoot sharp blue spears
lighting substrates of ancient horror, inchoate
but fattening before her eyes as she
sits, wrapped in ghosts, guarding her
ochre tea in its chalice of steaming bone,
trying to sell herself a ticket to
tomorrow’s sunrise, staring at thunderheads
bunching up satin over sodden ninjas sprouting
cardboard hair, slicing down legions of
roaring pearl as death hunts hollow-eyed below.
Her Majesty holds court, amid the percussion of
steel and plate, a matador to shadows
that clasp their hands and dance around, as
clouds hammer rain to the ground.
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 6:44 PM UTC
When something snaps
The ****** all bolt
Dogs out the traps
We all collapse
Down the plughole
Like turned on taps
Jaded expats
Bourbon, poker
All throw craps
Black top hats
Line the road
Like mourning bats
Marital spats
Crystal prisms
Where love refracts
Wear navy slacks
Stare out to sea
As mars attacks
Nightmares hide facts
Flattened like focaccia
Under fifteen all-blacks
Fuss over Goldman sachs
You know we only blink
When it's the shirt on our backs
Jan 31, 2012
Jan 31, 2012 at 5:12 AM UTC
Remind me that
one day
I will visit the planet
Zog
Where sleepy people
parade in duvets
instead of clothes.
Good morning
to them means nothing.
Sleepy people come from Zog.
Is it where rude animals live?
That make a mess with
food in their dish
oh sorry they eat
off the floor.
Spend their time
distributing hairs to
every corner of a room,
Then they go in the
shoe cupboard and
choose the nicest shoe
and goes to the toilet on
the sole of it. Nice.
A dog comes from Zog.
Moths
their one purpose in life
to spread eagle on your car window
with a shcoked look.
Or drape themselves to the grill
on the front of your car.
They come from Zog.
The postman that looks
at the address on the envelope
looks at the number on the
front door.
Do they match?
No they do not.
It is next door's mail.
But hey ** just for the thrill of it
it goes in the letterbox.
That postman comes from Zog.
The teaspoon from the cutlery drawer
having its daily laugh.
Refusing to comform
wont go with the rest, oh no
It stays in the washing up water
and tries to abscond down the plughole.
Teaspoons are from Zog.
Here endeth my rant.
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 12:36 AM UTC
Jimmy opened his suitcase in the room
at Lourdes and said Oh no there’s molasses
all over the clothes and shoes and I’ve got
a whole week here and he sat down in a chair
his head in his hands saying What have I done?
What am I going to do for clothes now? you
went over and looked in and sure enough
the molasses were over his clothes and shoes.
What am I going to do? he said and you said
Leave it to me Jim I'll sort it and you went through
the clothes taking out the items untouched
by the molasses and set them aside on the bed
and then carried the suitcase of black sticky items
Into the washroom and there one by one you carefully
washed them through with soap and water until
they were clean and smelt of soap and fresh air
and all the while 94 year old Jim sat in a chair
watching with his eyes watery and jaw hung loose
seeing the black water run down the wide plughole
and once it was done you wrung the clothes out
like your mother used to do when you were a kid
and hung them out on the balcony on the small
clothesline and placed the washed out black shoes
by the outside wall to dry out in the hot afternoon
sun and Jimmy came over and stood on the balcony
with one hand on the rail and the other on his stick
looking over at the Pyrenees in the distance and he
said That was real good of you. I owe you big time
and you stood next to him feeling the hot afternoon
sun on your face and arms and felt good and you
said You owe me nothing Jim I just did what some
good guy would and his watery eyes swept over you
matching the French sky’s watery afternoon blue.
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 4:04 AM UTC
When the horizon shatters the earth in its sunlight
and the blue, like ink down a plughole drains
into a pastel white spring morning, she will have left.
And I will wander home.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 7:47 PM UTC
By Sara L Russell 31st August 2014 at 04:26am
After he died,
his spirit was determined to
apologise to her
in the next life,
for all the abuse.
He came back as a spider
In her bath.
She washed him down the plughole.
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 1:06 PM UTC
I’ll only say this once, and once a ******* lone.
There’s a problem to address, and yes, there’s a reason for my tone.
You’ve been prancing around me blissfully, and in a few seconds’ time,
you’ll think of someplace else wishfully. Once I say. Just once.
It’s certainly not fair when I’m the one removing the hair from that hole.
I’m a sick ******* but I have no lust for disgust.
After my mind is perused, I’m angry and confused. The possibility
dawns on me that it could well be your *****
Or the gel ridden, straw-like hair on your head.
That image fills me with a different kind of dread.
With this in mind, I’ll be shuddering with repulsion,
Trapped later in life with memories of physically indulging
my hand your slimy Barnet. Believe me, that’s not normal hair,
so don’t start telling me to calm it.
Or no…perhaps…
It’s sent my mind searing, it’s ever so weird
to, for one moment, consider that you have the ability of growing a beard.
You’re baby-faced, commonplace, and don’t have a thought worth hearing.
You’re still a child, a mental ****** and to top it off, a beard is now appearing.
Well that’s great. Another thing I have to deal with.
Can you not take care of your own affairs?
If I were you I’d encase all the little hairs
in a purse of some kind, so you’ll always pay mind
to the fact that you now look like a man
despite being a **** Miraculous. I must say, I’m a fan.
Well I guess now it doesn’t even matter,
your face is bare and the bath tub is spattered. I’m shattered.
This isn’t how I pictured my early years, wasting furious tears over beards.
If only early on I had been told, that eventually I would end up
staring in outrage daily at your beard in the plughole.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 4:42 AM UTC
Kerry Rain
Now I know from whence the
excess water comes from, when
our river floods ******* house.
The catchment area between the
mountains, back here in Kerry,
is an Atlantic funnel.
Ventry winds, West laden, with
an aviated tide, make land fall
just below, in the aqua plain.
From here, it heads for the Cork-ed
plughole, where its route is marked
by bridges along the way to Mallow.
Finn.
8 March 2019
House sitting in
Co Kerry.
(Visited Ventry yesterday)
Mar 8, 2019
Mar 8, 2019 at 4:30 AM UTC
Martha had this thing
about the Crucified.
The image, the cross,
the stretched out arms.
The one in the convent
school along by the chapel
always caught her eye.
Stood there staring.
Get a move on Martha,
the nun said. Don’t gape so.
Or the image in the dining
room stuck up on the wall
above the abbess’s table.
Painted on she thought.
Not the same. Her mother
had the one her mother
gave her on her deathbed.
Old wood and plaster.
The plaster peeling from
the hands of the Crucified.
Martha gaped at Him,
at His wounds, at the wound
in His side where the spear
went in. Forgive them for
they know not. They did so,
the ******** she muttered,
putting her fingers on the wound
in the side. She had an ebony
rosary in her skirt pocket. Black
Christ on the small ebony cross.
She fingered in her pocket, said
the prayers, felt the stiff body
on the cross. Sometimes she
took it out and kissed it; the ebony
body, the head, the arms. Once
she had a cross around her neck,
silver, small, given by some old
codger. She felt it warm between
her small ******* Lost it when she
took it off to wash and it slipped
down the plughole in the convent bog.
She knew her mother had this wooden
crucifix on her chest of drawers.
A dark wood, a fleshy plastered Christ,
nails through and hands and feet.
She kissed the hands when her mother
was out, her lips touching the smooth
plaster, the eyes closed, the feel of
smoothness on flesh. Not the real
Christ of course. Least not yet.
She’d wait her turn. The real thing.
See what death and Heaven bring.
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 7:44 AM UTC
I'm liable to forget
That we all have phantoms
Hollow spaces
Dug and never refilled
And it was only last October
That I began wondering
Whether you miss your baby brother
Who never breathed
Your parents named him John
And I began wondering
If
Like me
You sometimes fell
Into the caverns and abysses that gaped
From the expectant space
In every family portrait
And whether you occasionally lost yourself
In the pregnant air inside your house
That anticipated an un-breathed child
An unused bedroom
And grew thick and stale
In it's emptiness.
I'm liable to forget
That we all have dropped stitches
And voids
And holes in our favourites scarves
Our brothers slipped down the plughole
But I mostly forgot about yours
Because mine was blood
And yours was always
As fickle as water.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 2:57 PM UTC
Did you know that where you were born the water goes down the plughole in the other direction?
I don’t suppose you do know because you’re still rather small.
And also, why would you have noticed?
Did you know that you were born somewhere with no reason to fear spiders?
That although ugly their bites would cause no harm
And also that you were born to a land with no koalas?
Did you know that the sun didn’t feel as much heat where you were born?
That people wore wetsuits to go in the sea
And beaches were more often walked down than lay upon?
I hope that this you do know
And that now you’re there you know to play in the sand
And feel your feet in the sea
Did you know that where you were born people barbequed only in the summer?
And in winter where you were born snow fell and lakes froze?
You’ve seen snow before, did you know?
Did you know that where you were born there’s no eucalyptus or kangaroos?
What we do have is squirrels, badgers and bulldogs
And a lot of cold rain
Did you know that you’ve been to the queens house?
Have you noticed that the Queen makes you seem nearer?
Because even with the distance our Queen is your Queen
We can both call her ‘The Queen’
Did you know that when you were born Mummy was more worried about losing your woolly hat than wearing sunscreen?
It was so cold where you were born that Mummy couldn’t feel her fingers
And Daddy always wore jeans
I bet you didn’t know that where you were born people ate yogurt and pasta
That yoagurt and parsta were not spoken of
And people asked how you were, not how you were going?
Did you know you lived your first year in a country the whole world was looking at?
You probably don’t remember the Jubilee or Olympics
But you were here whilst the world was watching
There’s a lot of things you might not know
But one day you’ll realise perhaps you did know
For just because you’re upside down now
We’re still here
And we hold your memories of the land where you were born
But meanwhile whilst you’re there
We’ll be loving you
Which is really no different all the way over there
Than it is here, where you were born
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 5:40 AM UTC
Venus of the drains,
Receiver of their prayers and offerings.
Tires of the gifts washed down the streets,
From the city of the rats.
A goddess, prisoner of the rats,
Down in the belly of Cloaca Maxima.
Like the bud of a tossed away cigarette,
They’ve opened a forest fire.
This is how it ends,
Drowned in their own tithes and offerings.
The prisoner of Cloaca Maxima,
Is sending every prayer back to its sender.
Corruption, death and disease,
All flows down in the city of the rats.
When you try to call pest control,
Your blood will fill up the streets,
In the city of the rats.
You are fools, trying to build the ark when the flood has already come.
You never learned how to swim, all you vermin are going to drown.
You are up to your neck,
In your own **** and ****
Out of all the ways to go,
This had to be it!
You thought you were rid of us,
When you pulled the handle down.
All little things add up over time,
We’re coming back up to drown,
The city of the rats!
Venus rises out of Cloaca Maxima.
Rising out of every sewer.
She’s come to deliver,
Every prayer back to its sender.
Venus pull the handle down,
Flush all this **** away.
The only way to get rid of ****
Is to flush it all away.
We are coming out of every faucet,
Pipe, plughole, shower-head and toilet!
Swimming in a flooded landscape,
Eyes, nose and mouth just above it.
We’re rising up,
Venus’ rising up,
***** rising up.
Out of all the ways to go this had to be it,
Drowned in your own **** and ****
Dec 15, 2019
Dec 15, 2019 at 6:07 PM UTC
Xenia has never felt so low,
Xenia has bathed and scrubbed,
but still feels unclean.
She wants him unsexed
from her body
his kisses removed
from lips and skin,
and those places within.
She wants to wash him away,
watch all aspects of him ,
drain down the plughole
with a big slurp,
feel her flesh tingle
with cleanness,
but she still senses him there
on skin, in hair, in her memory,
he’s still there.
Xenia wants
to unkiss his kisses,
untouch his touches,
his caresses. She sits and broods,
thinks of past times,
of him and those days,
those deeds done.
Xenia wants to be reborn,
be as new, be unaware
he existed or exists,
how long and big
her want to happen
and not lists.
She recalls
his blows, his punches
to out of the way places
(he never hits faces)
his cruel torments,
foul words,
poking finger,
poke poke poke,
the endless
taunting joke.
She feels so unclean,
so tainted, so used,
so undone.
There’s a bird singing
from outside her window,
a church bell rings,
from next door
a baby cries.
She closes her eyes,
something within her
hunches up and dies.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 2:45 AM UTC
I went back.
A week later,
everything foreign,
off
the map.
Rain.
I bought
a strawberry milkshake,
your favourite
from that cafe
we had breakfast in one time,
and you told me
your middle name
with a mouthful of croissant.
I still don't know what it is.
It didn't taste as good
and the price had gone up.
Carousel was closed,
found a bench,
must've slept.
Woke up soaked,
clothes clinging to me
like Velcro,
dog taking a leak,
watch said midday.
Went walking.
More rain.
It took your footprints,
snatched them away.
I couldn't find our castle,
that too had succumbed,
crumbled to pieces
like you and me
and you.
I can still smell the sea
on your shoulder-blades,
in your hair,
on the gap
between your nose
and your lip.
Didn't like being tickled
but I did it anyway...
you still laughed
and made black days
wildly red.
A memory,
memories
trickling as bathwater
down a plughole.
We ate raspberries,
threw rocks,
danced about like rag-dolls
to songs we'd just made up.
I called you Ringo,
you called me John.
Now the waves,
***** diamonds
scare me as soon
as they skedaddle
over my toes.
You are not lost,
and yet
I cannot find you.
Rain.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
I wash my hands,
And wring them dry,
Watching my worries,
Disappear with the grey water,
Down the plughole of life.
Apr 10, 2019
Apr 10, 2019 at 10:00 PM UTC
I stub out poetry like smokes in my overflowing ash trays
they flickered across my mind and were gone in a instant
self-combustible nonsense I read in a magazine when I was ten
years old and jaded before I hit eleven I gave up on love and
poetical existence disappeared down the plughole while I was
washing off the grime of others ideas of who I should be.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 7:32 AM UTC
In my fairy garden
the bubbles fly so high
they blow into the atmosphere
and neutralise the sky
My fairy bubbles help my skin
they soften and they glow
they transmutate the sea-life
till extinction bids them "Go"
My lovely fairy bubbles
take my washday blues away
they saunter down my plughole
and drift into the bay
They poison and they modify
with each outgoing tide
They brighten up the logos
in the land of paranoid
Well my whites are so much whiter
since I bought my fairy friend
I give no **** for politics
I flush it round the bend
My clothes must be the cleanest
like the ones on my T.V.
A speck of dust a fleck of mud
is social leprosy
So lets all use our faries
and wash our blues away
let's forget about the ocean
and the price that we must pay
As the sea-life gets much rarer
from the toxic fairy sludge
ask yourself some questions
give your conscience a little nudge
This is the land of plenty
for all and not just one
Your cleaning and your preening
are blotting out the sun
"......for hands that do dishes
may one day grab your throat....
....buy Mind-Need-Fancy-Snake-Piss....."
Jun 10, 2019
Jun 10, 2019 at 7:51 AM UTC
Today I ****** In The Sink.
couldn't hold it to aim toward the toilet,
I drank too much soda and I had to go *** bad
there my engine was cast went right for the sink
can't even wink to dismiss this earthly bliss with a time well spent in thought
In my experience, men who *** (or tip their *** bottles) down the sink, don't tip it straight down the plughole - they tip it down the sides of the sink first. They also decide to economise on water to the extent that they make no attempt whatsoever to rinse the *** off. This means that before long, like a few minutes as the water evaporates and the urea becomes concentrated, - YOUR SINK WILL STINK!!! And, as the sink always seems to be the one you want to brush your teeth in, this means that your first task in the morning is to scrub out the sink else half way through brushing your teeth you will suddenly feel rather ill and probably throw up down said sink, which will then need an even more thorough clean. But the sponge you scrub the sink out with will then need to be hidden from the rest of the family who will otherwise attempt to wash either themselves or the tea-cups with it. Our sink is a pretty basic one with a straight tube draining the waste water away, but if you have one with a u-tube thingie fitted, it will always retain some *** no matter how much water you use in a futile attempt to rinse it out, and every time you approach the sink your stomach will clench in fear of the stench that will rise from the plug hole as you reach for your toothbrush.
Dec 8, 2018
Dec 8, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
in terms of plumbing it's called
a plughole, or a brown bear's
hibernation tactic to lick
some fur after binging on salmon
and wildberries...
to you i prescribe poetry...
it's what anorexics seem to crave
when they want to get fat
with fictional prose...
i am prescribing you
a diet of poetry... to get you all
fat prosaics into shape...
byway of treating asthma too...
or what's called: letting wine to
be uncorked and pouring it
into an aquarium to whisper a little
about its possible scents enclosed
prior to intoxication...
while disclosing that there was
a goldfish named Bob in the aquarium
while this was going on...
and he said: looking at my fishy lips:
call me... bubblegum.
Dec 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016 at 9:51 PM UTC
now it’s camaraderie down
the plughole dry pint glasses
and an unstabbed dartboard
as this Parthenon of chalk dust
played host to its last epic
clash of the amateurs
baize blessed for the final time
many-houred conflict of breakoffs
and ***** shots
a throng of fortunate bespectacled
punters quiet for the final frame
all back and forth
‘til two unknowns outside of town
shook hands proclaimed a draw
MORE the crowd cried
playtime was over but they’ll always
remember this tussle for the title
in the multi-tabled hall that sleeps
where an angry scarlet sign
on the entrance doors bellows
NO ENTRY to the memories held within
Mar 19, 2024
Mar 19, 2024 at 1:19 PM UTC