A Drug Dealer Reflects...
The chorus, a cacophony,
as gulls exploded
from the mudflats, on the estuary,
sleet, brain-numbing,
pelted a grey curtain;
with hands thrust deep, pocket jammed,
I felt like Richard Burton,
selling his soul to Hollywood,
not quite the same, though,
when all I sell is death
in Deadwood.
Here come my gulls, scavengers,
teenage patrons ever eager
as bad news messengers,
heads, sloth riddled beneath
baseball caps reversed,
their words, a streetwise patois
fluffed and stammered
badly rehearsed
but I always sense the gist.
There’s no excuse for me,
sedating kids,
passing bags of snow,
blank eyes fixed on the sea;
for all my delusions
cliché’s of market forces
customers, supply and demand
their snorting horses
once were wooden and rocked
not so long ago.
Within me deep
I know what I am,
no, I have no grand illusions,
I know I’m not the man,
not the myth from songs by
The Stones or the Underground,
just a bigger gull feeding
on the little gulls.
I’m no pharmaceutical saviour
in this seaside slum;
the man? I’m not a man
I’m just
scum.
Copyright © Tony Bush | Year Posted 2006
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