Damned Love

 deaf & dim 1#

Saxophones wheeze  cracked on
emphysema blues  smack
taking me  back to
the  days of cast iron
men  with rail-road tracked
faces hack-coughing  bar-room wisdom
or  bollocking froth
drinking fuelled  black velvet
and  Jameson
While snap-Henry  jeered at them
their liquid  addiction
he  smoking joints of pure black
beaten
for  his honesty and look
as  keen-Eddie drove past in an
American Jeep,  beeped, waved
disappeared…
chased by  dumb cops too stupid
to  think about road blocks or call up
non-existent  helicopters
…never to  be seen again
except by  lunatics and visionaries
wearing 3-D  coloured popsicles

Saxophone poops,  farts out
an  odorous dissonance the
Captain himself  could have blown
when the  late Dave scoots in, winks
smiles his  most conspiratorial saying
‘The past  is a dangerous place.’
mouths something  about poetry
some other  shit I don’t wanna hear
buys a  chocolateless cappuccino
white-worm coloured
pours it  down off offhandedly
I  tell him I don’t know the why
or  what of it
I’m  not sure I care
he  agrees
after  all
it’s only  the future
and  energy levels are low

Saxophones honk  spurt
kissing youth  another time
who  themselves are inventing
persona’s whilst  fashioning
novel styles  that will shortly
be  sold back to them
as  if their thoughts had been
pre-processed by  imagineless
industry so-called  creatives
leeching whilst  drinking
unpronounceable liquids  made
for  them by teams of cocktail
imagineers
who  live in low rent apartments
or  squat in derelict districts
soon to  be gentrified by the fuckers
they  serve.

Saxophones squawk  in panic
warning
the  love activists of imminent
apocalypse
as  the riot squad or whatever
media friendly  name they are
calling themselves  today
boot-stamp inadequately  protected
homeless
out  of empty buildings
take them  to courts where
dislocated, funnel-brained  judges
disallow homeless  protests on the grounds
those who  haven’t been involved
in  communities have no validity
for  their actions, as if
that made  any sense
at  all
Judges, who  don’t themselves ever
have to  walk past hopelessness,
except maybe  to burn £50 notes
incarcerate heedlessly
defenders of  the weak and powerless.

Saxophones crash,  spark
wildly Bird  inspired solos of
righteous indignation  trusting
truth will  be revealed
to  us all except
midnight Jim  wandering wonkily
searching for  that big
fag-end and  wonder pint
that will  make his day
perhaps  even
changing his  and all
our  ways
Play Coltrane  Play!

 

 

 

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© Paul Blackburn
Art: Mitch Davies


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