The Ballad of the Pink Gin

There she was.
Venus as a gin.
Pink and glistening
like the elixir
of ambivalence.
That feeling you get…
when the frets
have stretched your
worried head,
and you need
an alcohol
anaesthesia.

She slipped into
my trolley.
All regal and
queenlike.
Not like the
proletariat breadloaf,
or the lower caste
regurgitated chicken roll.
She protested as
she slipped into
her carrier bag,
but I’m not paying
for elaborate horse drawn
carriages from the likes
of Tesco.

Try carrying 6 bags
of shopping on a bus,
so, I called a cab
to carry us,
my pink gin love
and I.
But you wouldn’t expect
to lose a friend
so soon
after bonding.
And manslaughter charges
don’t apply to
alcoholic beverages.
But our love lay
shattered. Crucified.
In shards of broken glass
dreams, and
pools of wanton
aspirations.

The taxi guy,
he pleaded guilty,
but I don’t like to
see people sad
and watching his regret
made me feel bad.
I want for nothing, really.
I don’t need his
sixteen pound fifty,
when he earns a pittance
and feeds a family.
Might be his gas money
for the week,
and I know from his eyes
he is sorry to his skeleton
and remorseful to
his guilty heart.

I hope the Tesco cleaners
gave my love a
regal funeral,
and there will be a lot
of merry birds
on Gallagher Retail Park
today!

Sarah Drury 2021

Hard Boys

The other night, a big gang of lads were hanging about outside my flats, causing absolute mayhem. Obviously off their heads on drugs and booze, they were shouting and just being crazy. I must admit I was scared, and it triggered a bad anxiety and OCD attack. I ended up going to bed and trying to drown out the noise! Here’s a poem I wrote…

Big boys
Hard boys
Loud boys
Lost boys
Riding the manic high
of your coke
of your dope
of your speed
of your blow
of your weed
I don’t care what you call it
but it makes monsters of your mind
Birthing obnoxious rowdy rebellion
Pissing off the neighbourhood
Like we don’t need sleep
and we haven’t got kids
and we don’t have anxiety disorders

And oh, I was living on my last nerve
Heart all exposed and wrapped in disquietude
Butterflies feasting on my gastrological angst
Head establishing a terrorist situation
Mind lost in OCD
And OCD is telling me
They’re going to get me
They’re going to find me
They’re going to rape me
This won’t end well

Big boys
Hard boys
Loud boys
Lost boys
Probably just having your laughs
And being rebellious teens
And chasing escapism from
Your lives of mundanity and tedium
Bit of coke
Bit of dope
Bit of speed
Bit of blow
Bit of weed
Sorted

Why my anxiety consigns me to Hell
I don’t understand
Threatened by a good time boy bunch
Your laughs slicing my psyche
like feel good knives
with blades sharpened in acid
Maybe I lost my inner child
Maybe she got lost in a maelstrom
of scared and fearful and afraid
The mind knows how
to keep me a prisoner
The mind knows
I lost my childhood

©2020 Sarah Drury