IN BRUSSELS:
Up on the roof like Batman, singing to the music
of car horns, harmonising with howling drunks – the
football boys celebrate a win, making tunnels for cars
with their national flag like wedding arches, blessing
every timid face behind the wheel with raised bottles,
“Yaayy!”
The driver that collects us from the station celebrates
the names of all the people he’s driven, he used to be a
DJ, has 800 records, New Wave is his favourite,
but he knows me. He collects photographs, posing with
passengers, attaching them to their records,
asks me if I’d mind. Brain Ferry, Jim Ker, Duran Duran,
Too Many DJ’s, even Springsteen.
“I’ve got Madness next week” he beams.
“I know them” I reply, flinching at syneasthetic images of
the darkest night in Athens, blood & burning vans, black
full face helmets & machetes. We pose at curb side grinning
with his arm around me ’till the flash turns our eyes red,
“One more for luck?”
& as he slips my bag out the boot of his black Mercedes I wonder
when he slept last.
(K)

Have fun in Belgium 🙂
Dang. I should have hooked you up with Michel Moers.