Tuesday 3 May 2011

Tuesday Poem: "Friday Night Babel"



like a felled tree
I am showing my age
but counting the rings
is a different game when
you are long past the innocence

my fingers wrapped around a cold stem
when they would rather be tangled
in the forest of tresses that
bounce and swish and shimmy past
in a plethora of cocktail dresses

Friday night Babel
stallions and mares
growing hoarse in conversation
pressing like a perfumed wave
against the glittering bar
where many a hope has been dashed

strip away the comedy of manners
to its raw and primal engine
the seething sexual search of pheromones
looking for a home

if we were honest with ourselves
we'd rather be home with our feet up
and a nice cup of Earl Grey


I wrote this poem after separating from my first wife and returning to my homeland after an absence of nine years. I was 38 and I had not been on the dating/courting scene since my early twenties so it was all very strange and discombobulating. I very soon re-discovered something I had known all along: for a large number of reasons, bars are not good places to try and establish a relationship.

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