The Absinthe Minded at a Quarter Past Fifty

He was famously absinthe minded enough
To want to paint his own legacy
He’d already glossed over the doormat of self-awareness
With his own perception
Pulled self-tapping screws from the barrel belly of his past
Swapped his intake valve for a rustier much larger one

On the way back from getting
A spare set of keys for his heart
He bought a two pound tin of creosote from the floor outside the shop
It smelled like the essence of his being
It was the colour of his complexion
The ‘landscape of his body’
It was a bloody mess
Any natural beauty had long been ditched and
Smashed for six at a 65 over Limited country car crash
He vaguely remembers the 5-oh
He vaguely remembers the 5-oh at his door

By day he was a practising horizontalist
Satin finished sat indoors
Whining away the hours
His third eyed view from five foot two
Decorated the interior of his dwelling
Trees dropped wonky shells in
The war zone of his expression as
His money always ran after the wrong horse
And his empty life was in the feeding stage of its own third course

He waited until the hottest day of the year
To paint the frame of the window to his soul
Magnolia hair and artex skin and sponged guts
He laid the carpet out for himself
Painted it red
With his temper on eggshells
He stubbed his cigarette
Before kicking the can up the road
Which bounced like the baby he fought not to be
As serotonin alarm bells went off in this melt
He sat and felt his brain drip
On the bread of his own doorstep

The undercoater would take him back some day
That shook him to his very bones
He’d seen the red raw core of his very self
And seen that someone had already been round
To paint it black
Who had paid for that?

Half way through undercoating the gateway to his mind
He threw his tar brush over the wall
And put a stop to that start
He went for a quick one over the road
In hope that drinks till pay day
Could be on the missing slate of his mind
And he could chalk up a couple of coppers
And nail them to the dart board
And then decide

So when you hear the news
Any day now oh boy
Look north
Raise one to the solitary
Pull another from the fridge
To the ones whistling their unfinished symphony
On life’s back and Forth Road Bridge