ON THE BEACH:

So I walk into work this morning, first thing hits me is the wiff
of last night. Rancid beer, cheep wine, sweat, dust, diesel fumes,
the usual cocktail of smells in a morning after dance hall.
The house crew looks drawn, hunched, an army after battle,
I’m guessing no one’s slept. There’s an air of fragility devoid
of humour. Down to the left, in front of the stage a young couple
is lying on the bass bins wrapped in an old blanket, bombed ragged,
that look in the eyes. She’s asleep, but he’s still awake, at least
eyes open, looks up at me forlorn like a street beggar. The debris
of the night is strewn around them, beer cans & screwed up fag
packets. When we start up they shuffle off like old people leaving
a clearing in the debris the shape of their bodies.
Directly in front of me a geezer in a backwards cap watches over
a woman in pink & shades. She lies dormant, but when I start
singing her heads lolls in my direction. I can’t focus on the job,
she looks too damaged, like she fell out’ve the rigging last night
& was abandoned to die, broken. It must have been a good night.

(K)