Last Sunday morning when
you coughed up a lung
sniffed up a sardine
pooped out a parrot and
Literally fell to the floor
flailing even gibbering
wondering if it was late variant covid
Just for reference and full disclosure
you'd drunk four cans of Special Brew
the night before case closed
You got up on the horse
now you can get off off the horse
or fall in slow motion off the horse
don't matter much to me, ain't my horse
My indifference causes
an earthquake on Mars
(marsquake)
My mother (briefly) had a 'bosom pal'
Janice was a hairdresser who
lived in a tower block, not like us
She was always on about Crystal Palace
and together they laughed so much thick
as thieves yukking it up
Janice cut my hair and left me to
watch cartoons with orange juice
You climbed up up up upon that horse
now you can come off off off of that horse
Ended up in Southall
listening to Dorothy Carter in the rain
the relentless rain did I mention the rain took a bus
took a wrong turn saw the water tower
the town hall. An ex-colleague lived here
I imagined a dialogue, not unusual but
Fruitless, not even comforting
Remember, at some point, mention
delicious aromas and the vibrancy
Traditional folk, medieval revival,
psychedelic experimentation
In the rain prior, I went to Hayes & Harlington
took three or four wrong turnings there
this is what we do now
ransack the outskirts on a wet Weds
For free, in yr spare
soakd unto drooned rat and this was the last
time I wore my long-life Berghaus before it
perished, mercifully
in an alien machine
now we are laying some say lying here
moribund and fizzing
now we are itching also scratching
the difference which of the foot slash feet
entering the bunkarts of albania
stop it now ssh it all now
playing cricket in the afterlife
now we are having to rise at 0600 military
with alarum music set for 0607 good reasons
restith cometh you awake afresh its 1212
now you are wearing fat slippers
now you are depositing distracting pee some say piss
now you are noticing the reassuring whoosh of the traffic
but whabout the less assuring whoosh
whine of your own earholes and whither
ist my tinnitus appointment
the clack and squawk of late homecomers, residual
longing for the increasingly rare lonesome train whistle
now take a deep side turn bet if tony and georgia
met you all have a laugh like pub quiz bike ride
sit and moisturize the feet awhile
radio on radio off
entering the caves in devon chislehurst also
the chilly step down into bonespace
aerial geometry field
school rulebook cloud
within cells interlinked
now are we awake now are we drifting no
we cannot be drifting if
the boy on the bike yells 'Specsavers!'
at me after I cross the road
in front of him (executing my
crossing with great efficiently
in order not to cause him to slow down)
the women in the booth raps
her nails on the glass three times
and beckons me to show my passport
as I started to walk past her window
as she was engrossed in her phone
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'Max Payne interiors'
as if my sunlit doppelganger had the
faintest idea what is meant by that
My investigations reveal there is a Max Payne
third-person shooter which has
'one of the bleakest settings in gaming history'
Now I'm not a gamer but this gritty,
noir-inspired aesthetic, featuring dark, dilapidated,
and claustrophobic spaces which mirror the protagonist's
despair and the city's decay was
instantly recognisable to me
And yes the subway, the hotel, the drug den
with their sparse lighting, worn textures, and
often filthy environments are
the ideal locations for my own
gritty, revenge-driven storyline about
a man on the edge, fighting to clear his name
while struggling to uncover
the truth about his slain family - it all added up
You're in a computer game, Max.
