'Night after night - It always ends the same.
I stumble through the door
into the dawn - my ears full of the snore
of empty streets, declaim
my masculinity to the coy stars.
My face feared in a galaxy of bars,
I lumber down a lane,
undo my bladder, and let out the pain -
sharp as a busted glass -
of thirty years of drinking, on a wall.
It's stimulating - perching on my stool
in a hundred stale pubs
where T. Vs blab the Racing news, and tubs
of lager make us drool
like hogs, when a barmaid reloads the taps.
And we eat well. I could live off the scraps
of beer and unbought pies
the bartender flings us, 'soon as he spies
the clock turn five, and raps
his ugly knuckles on the bench. "Last drinks!"
I wander home to bed when darkness sinks
below the bristled sea,
depressing myself with where I might be
in ten years. Nothing stinks
like that faint smell of death at closing time.'