the papers which plaster the walls
clash like the guts of a car crash;
the rust flaking paint on a broken-
down ford in a lake. bright as the colour
on breeze pissing flowerpetals,
loud as an orchestra; advertising
rock shows and thursday karaoke,
websites for various bands –

I do love this bar, with its stairwells,
clinging carpet and passage past booths.
love all bars like this one:
sticky warmth, pleasant light,
everyone in glasses, 2 dollar ciders
from 8 dollar cans. and 2 guys on stage
messing with laptops
while scenes from old movies
float in vapour overhead.

everyone smoking electric cigarettes
and everyone pretty
with pretty good clothes. everyone believing
in art, or in artists, and in wicca sometimes,
or horoscopes, misunderstanding communism
as freedom from tyranny.

sometimes you need a place
to go where you can watch people
want things; to eat sandwiches and drink
with our hands in summer grass
and feeling the stars come unhidden
like the flash of a smile
on someone distant you’re looking at,
to feel the colour of the world flicker into us
like the light from a fire
late in the evening
and somebody
playing a guitar.