Monday 28 December 2020

The Fug on the Fringes



The sun

was the colour of piss on chrome, of

marigolds in baskets, marigolds in sinks, of lager

in the last flat roof pub. The riotous fug.

 

Al limped in.

He’d worked in Bloomsbury before the concrete set.

There was a moment where 50% polyester felt like

silk on skin. He was made of XS, but took an XL RL

knock-off in white. Bone buttoned. Billowing.

Bog rolls on string.

 

They’d got their Sunday’s

caught in the zip of the afternoon. Kev of Mancunia was

double cross, had shot people for less and would not

leave it out. Lydia, gave a ‘missed Frank earlier’

out the side of her mouth.

 

I don’t need to miss this place to know that they was there.

I snapped fairies in the willow by me dead mum’s dog,

do you ever notice? Do you

fucking care?

 

Algernon had a

perfect working washer, Ariston, but opted for the coin-op.

Odds on for a mix-up in the undergarments. Meaning

cubicle confinement to pass the export flat, else that

frilly question, he dared be asked.

The lash.

 

He’d arrived

all over The Danish Girl on ITV 3. It made his year.

He’d kipped all through MotD 2, the pub-time sermon,

to be passed on and on and on

and on…

 

A schtum trudge

through dead tree stools, lily mats, lino grass, took a sharp

down the gents. Parfum ’73 hit his working nostril, for the

veil of stench. Eyes to heavens, he royally threw. Home

counties ‘22.

 

He flicked thinning overgrowth, nicked his finger on

safety glass and rouged his lips. Scarf-tied Sue Ryder, tight.

Firm fingered the hole in his memory, to see

if it had a pulse.

 

Borax for the thorax.

Metal coat-hanger ‘tween teeth. Jutting clavicles creased and

wrinkled. Tranquiliser girls came crutch less with glossy dogs

in flaxen highs, all camomile lawn laid and dandy handsome.

Glue that. 

 


 

The fruit machine flashed back.

Fellow nymphs gambolling meadows, were fellow sods

gambling Sky Sports racing. Keynes would’ve had a

good-to-firm field day. Cornflower pens behind ears.

A horse named Ripp Off ran the 2:15.

Livers for the chop.

 

a damn fix, unfair! In all my time recorded,

such power, such grace should not go unrewarded!

 

The vape was opiate.

The insults, appropriate. The expression on Dave’s dog’s

visage. The brawn by the pawn shop. Salute tattoos

on the arms of Ian. All soaks, masquerading

as functioning human beings.

 

Al’s named each that ghastly prick, as the fug of the day

came in again,

thick.

 

Vent-Axia

magnolia fly-stuck where the loose let, let loose. Arse flesh

for the meat raffle. Each nail, each visit, he filed under

breezeblocks in the bogs. He calf-polish spat on his Reebok,

mirrored a young man never aged.

Not ‘alf.

 

Narcissus ivy, window cracked. It wrapped his imagination

like the absinthe advert dress by the dartboard.

It was a story full of holes.

 

Vanessa tolled,

the crowd bemused. Tomorrow, our lonesome fuck, would be

‘same again love’, as both Al and Algernon

all too bastard knew.



 



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