SMOKE IN PHOTOGRAPHS/DREAMS OF FIGHTS

i'm always smoking in photographs

always in the same drinking shirt

the

sort

of

shirt

Bubbles would wear

and 

always they're taken awkwardly 

under the horse hair blanket of cloud

i look 

this way and that

burning chicken in the green flames of old spices and fat

i only drink 

now 

in lurid dreams

always shooting shiny glasses quickly 

wearing an exhilarated accelerator smile 

until

i remember i’m supposed to sober 

and everything stops - for laughter!

and

its all ok and good and fine 

in the sprawling wood bar celebrations where the light comes in golden and low/always a late summer afternoon

its like a gang

i'm like a king

we are all a victory army

in the unconscious gig night

where

flashbulbs freeze the smoke in newspapers

and 

all the songs are old and known and classic

and 

its in the unconscious gig night that tears come

a gentle salty tide

weirdly

neutral in the dream arena/prelude to violence . . .

thats

over

quickly - i am unwon and not me

in the shiny black and crumbled stone

of

a

cab rank - still dreaming/playing cabbie roulette

always 

giving the right address home

i only cry in photographs snapped in the dirty dawn

when the red ropes 

are all back 

in the broom cupboards

and 

the 

bouncers

count knuckle scrapes in the 6 AM greasy spoon