I walked out of the rain
and into the Queen's Arms
I bet I can drink two pints of Guinness
before that woman finishes
her fat french stick
I watch her mayonnaise tears hit the table
as the musics whines
or is it the conversation?
twisted and bleary
pooling on beer soaked tongues
it bangs between the pin ball flippers
and the fruitless fruit machine which chirps
for my attention in the corner of the bar
a colourless man stares at his pint
as if it holds an answer
but what is the question?
does it lie in the optimist's half full
or the pessimists's half empty?
maybe it hides in the froth of the last dregs
like a silent mouthed answer which is lost in a belch
and the dull thud as glass meets bar top
the barman young and also empty
polishes a glass and holds it high
quickly he puts it back
realising that it is the light that is dirty
the barmaid a refugee from her own existence
spills conversation over anything with a pulse
but most are dead here
and even the living are terminal
or tired echoes of better days
I look up from my second empty glass
and see a discarded French stick
with its innards punched out across the table
(Just a quiet observation in a pub on a rainy day...)
