THE GREEN DRAGON

ABSINTHE MAKES THE FART GROW STRONGER

The Green Dragon will be the death of me.

So it will.

The cold wetness soaks into my groin,

Spreading down thighs like a sirens grope.

Staggering numbly, too late, to my feet,

I grab the stool, my only hope,

Of rickety support.

The dragons brew, still dribbling from the overturned glass,

Adds to the puddle and cigarette ash. 

Someone shouts “Go home,kick the bugger out.”

“Bloody lout”

Half-knowing what’s coming I face the inevitable humiliation.

With glassy eyed, stupefied, futile, defiance.

“Get yer hands off me. Who cares what you think.”

“You all stink.”

Then wheedling, pleading, “Alright I’m sorry,”

“… just need a mop… I’ll pay…  ‘tis only money”

Arms grip vice like, dragging me from the stool,

a fool,

 flailing feebly, stumbling, clutching, into the night air.

Then leaving me there, alone,

to stagger and vomit to somewhere called home.

(Where those I betray remember the days of a man, not a clown.)

Bastards!

The world conspires against me;

The stars,

Mock my curses,

bouncing emptily off cottages and cars.

Inside walls, unseen, timid souls, cowering fearfully in bed,

promise themselves for the umpteenth time

they’ll sleep in a back room in future instead.

The white dash stepping-stones across the junction beckon irresistibly.

One, two, three, four and thirty-five more, just like the film.

Left foot, right …steady now, don’t fall in.

Then walk the white line without lurch, to the church,

where the beams of the arc lights thrust upwards to heaven,

beacons, for spirits ascending to life never ending

for those that believe that it’s there.

Not mine though, not yet, I won’t hold my breath,

I still have my cross to bear.

The pain and despair,

the guilt and remorse of a living death,

a stranger to myself.

The Green Dragon will be the death of me. 

So it will.

Copyright Ben Corde 2014