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!
.
© Paul Blackburn
Art: Mitch Davies