Parties in my Head

I’ve been having parties

in the top right hand corner of my head

where the music throbs incessantly

and civility is dead

have another drink , one says

I don’t mind if I do

and the hunchback pounds on the old piano

till well past half two

a bulky fist hammers the door

Joe sent for me, he yells

& a smokey eyeball peers out

is this heaven or is this hell?

I wouldn’t mind so much

take less of a dim view

if due courtesies were observed

& I were invited too

Just Another Evening in Paradise

The Kings of Leon could still use somebody, Caleb sings in his Kurt Cobain voice

& the Kurdish Freedom Fighter comes on too strong to Lynne, wanting to whisk her away with his Hindu Kush eyes

& the woman with the Mastiff shoulders walks past in her low cut dress

& sniggering sneer

& Des starts knock knock  knocking on Heaven’s Door again because he knows we’re all here and I tell him to get back in his box coz you’re in the undiscovered country from whose bourne .. well, you know the rest

while Ruth limps off to the Ladies and Ted calls after her, that’s the best part of you gone,

and Sirocco knocks over his second glass of red on the white table cloth and Jarrod frowns and Gerry rushes over

and Max is cuddling Peter in the corner and the mulberry mutt mourns for its owner outside the window

& I’m talking much too loud but I’m in my cups And I tell the funny story about the pony walking into a bar again and I won’t be put down like a mad dog

& an officer from the penitentiary phones and says, no, Ades cannot be let out because it’s a Friday night

& we’re going round and round like skid marks on tarmac

& it’s just another Friday night in Paradise