The final hero of this tale moved in
When winter bit most hard. His cheeky grin
Would not permit the ice to freeze. He came
From England in a boat to make a claim
On one spare bed. He got it. Friend
Of old of James and Emmett, Shauner's yen
Was singing, rhyming slang and smoking tea.
So room was made for him on the settee.
About this time two drum kits in the house
Were merged – both Red and Lev's – like shooting grouse
The snare drum rilled both night and day. At 3
AM John McIlroy would take a spree
Of beating 'pon 'em – in the Moon would shine,
Delighted that his favourite kit-combine
Was put to such good use. The other chaps
Were neither here nor there about the claps
And drills and crashes that awoke them. In
The risen day both Lev and Erwan din
A good wee number, Lev on kit, guitar
Being played by Erwan, jamming like a car
That from a hill-top handbrake loosed rolls down
Unstoppable until it breaks the crown
Of some poor passerby. At this time too
Creative pinning on the wall gave view
To war and life and David Dickinson
Near nude; this grotesque sight was merely one
Of many. War we've heard of, in the first
Short canto; but not all was there-in versed.
For instance, futile protest gainst the War
In February was followed by some more
Of equal ineffectiveness. Iraq
Was subject to a mass air-based attack
On March nineteenth, with land troops later on.
When Bush joined Blair for tea on Hillsborough lawn
A lot of people tried to force them out.
But sadly peelers blocked the simplest route
And crowds are dumb, so nothing happened. At
Another protest later on the flat
Of many truncheons paid those hapless folk
Who lay upon the road a lesson. Smoke
Was seen but fire was not; the protests pet-
ered out, as often happens when defeat
Seems so completely certain.
Erwan chose
Around this time, to give up smoke; although
Tis more alike to say that for a half
A year he'd been attempting this - the graph
Of his consumption spiked and troughed like seas
Are pounded by a storm. When drinking teas
He rarely stopped at one – much more and more;
And then, when sober, horrified, forbore
To ever touch the stuff again. Quite soon,
Discovering that he loved it he consumed
E'en greater volumes than he had done thence.
This tricky situation made him tense;
If casual smoking could not do, but binge,
He couldn't smoke at all. The rusty hinge
Of his sobriety complained and creaked;
About six times he pushed upon it; sneaked
A sneaky joint or two and then was high
All week. 'So what?' you ask. 'To deify
The drug is dumb; but so to demonise
It; what harm does it do to mobilise
The faculties of mind by any means,
Including THC?' Agreed. I'm keen
To disabuse the ignorant, afraid
To see things from another view – the aid
That good dope gives you is immense, with bliss
And joyfulness attendant. But, there's this:
The fear that all your thoughts are false; and that
You've been deceived; you start to smell the rat
That rots there in the corner. Feeling fear
And loathing for these thoughts you try to steer
Your mind away; but helpless, stay transfixed
By all the weight of all the world. The bricks
That form the founding of your knowledge are
Most fragile, and to bash them into spar
In one long frenzied burst may leave one free
Of falsehood and delusion, but may be
That same act will expose us to those harms
That terrified us. Dope doth have it's charms
And drawbacks too; in fact its virtues are
Demerits and vice versa.
A cigar
And whiskey is one thing; and poker is
Another. Give them both to someone, his
Is happiness abundant. Five did play
That fine and happy evening, fifth of May
Two thousand three. The five lay five pees down
So five coins formed five five pees in a round
That was remarked on: five was everywhere
The cards were five; the coins; the pot the square;
The hand that held the hand, the fingers – count
Your limbs and count your head. This odd amount
A prime and elemental force defines
So many features of our world. These lines
Of poetry, pentameter iambic. Note
The number of the cantos, five; the tote
Of lines two fifty in each piece. Derive
That five plus five times five times five times five
Describes the sum of all the lines inscribed
Within this poem. This fiveness was ascribed
To some deep irony, but truth be told
Tis aluminium foil that forms the gold.
The livingroom lay empty for a time
The spare room used instead, e'en though to climb
Those sets of stairs was arduous task. Played Quake
From dusk to dawn, and blew the dust to make
Those endless spirals spin in shafts of light.
In James' room, young Hamish, jobless, quite
Prepared for any role, considered work
Inside the Pink House, butling, for the perk
Of food and lodging. But the way that James
Tossed orange peel upon the floor with claims
That Hamish ought to pick it up and thank
James for the privilege the notion sank
And orange peel remained on floor. The sun
Was bright those days and zoning free and fun;
The frisbee flew from hand to hand. At six
AM, returning from a night, for kicks
Young Barold, Hamish, Red and John did lift
A crate of fruit and veg they found – a gift
From MDS, the testing crowd. To steal
Became an interest shared by all. Concealed
Behind the name of Willy Stroker, books
Were got for nothing. Scotcall quickly took
An interest in what debt was owed and sent
A stream of threats in letters. This event
Was followed by the "Robin Books" affair,
Successful too. Nick Diamonds, Robin's heir,
Did try for gems, but did not get. The heist
Preeminent of these was also spiced
The most with fear – of waiting for a chap
To come and read the meter – for the gap
Between the readings was immense; abuse
Of electricity had drawn a noose
Around the necks of all our heroes. Stoves
Were used to heat the kitchen. Many strove
To keep their rooms like jungles. Erwan strolled
Downstairs one morning, then froze icy-cold
When someone knocked upon the door. He signed
To McIlroy to keep away – behind
This fear lay thoughts of all the folk the Pink
House should avoid. This time, they'd been on brink
Of letting in the meter man. Instead,
A card dropped though the door. Upon it read:
"I called today but you weren't in." So N
IE did estimate
the bill, and ten
Days later in it came. Astonishment
And glee: a lowly figure did present
To marveling eyes, a tenner each, and not
Ten hundred as the most of us there thought
It ought to be.
What is does oft not match
What ought to be. We run through some bad patch
And so it was for Emmett. Meaning that
The drugs, the job, the girl, he took, begat
Him pain and misery for near a year.
For Tesco is no job, a till cashier,
Through boredom getting stoned at work and home;
Relationships not based on rock but loam
And sinking through the yellow sand, he found
At last some mud to rest on. Badly browned,
Both he and Claire took one month's leave from work
The breakup took a longer time. To lurk
Forever in this though was not his wont
Young Emmett was alright, in time; the gaunt
Look turned to impish. But all that's outside
Our remit. Help came, Lev and Erwan fried
A giant lunch, and talked, and watched Stallone
Destroying helicopters on his own
And when the Big Pink closed all three plus Meabh
Moved to – Dunluce.
The thing that Hamish gave
The final push to leave, is murky; but
It happened on the night a violent brute
Crashed into Levin's car. (MacHill). When once
The dust was settled and the hubcap fronts
Were valued for their use as ash trays – then
Came knocking at the door in state unzen
Young Hamish. Seemingly he'd met some man
Who asked for cup of tea, but whose real plan
Was something else, as Hamish found out. This
Was likely sodomy; he still resists
Attempts to talk about it.
Lev and Neil
And Sheila came to take a certain zeal
For philosophic talk and joined a group
Where logic, metaphysics, moral hoops
And knowledge were discussed. Like having sex
With animals; the question they did vex
Was whether this was always wrong. And Tim
Would argue to the one conclusion grim:
Your point of view entailed that you agreed
That eating babies was a sinless creed.
What can we know for sure? It is obscure
No less because a mist will reassure
Us folk that all is well. For instance when
The bottle opener was thrown again
From out the house. This two-armed screw was flung
Because one always picked it up among
The debris, playing with the arms; and lack
Of will so manifest is like to crack
One up if one keeps at it. It returned
For Barry's leaving party; he discerned
That spending his next year in Oz would be
A better use of time.
The summer, free
Of worry and exams began then, June;
Young Erwan, Sheila, thought it opportune
To visit Greece. The famous Redbeard chose
To celebrate the summer without woes
By drinking cider round Malone. The cars
Were forced to stop as Redbeard in his jars
Took rests upon the bonnets. But no rest
Did Henman take at Wimbledon – his best
Demanded and received; his pluck and dare
Excelling all we'd seen before. The glare
Of so much adulation rattled him
However; all our shouts of "Go on Tim!"
Did not suffice. Indeed it may be why
He lost. But never will his laurels die;
He moved us all to nearly clean the Pink
That June; a task from which most folk would shrink
With coiling liver. Half the rubbish gone;
The toast removed from bath at last; the lawn
Of black mould round the kitchen, that was left
But bracket mushroom from the shower, cleft.
The pizza boxes neatly tucked away
Behind the sofa in the corner. They
Who did this cleaning spent at least some hours
Upon it. Reconfirming that the powers
A landlord has are much too much, they kept
Well over half of our deposits.
Stepped
You into this house now, you'd find nought there:
No folk, no beer, no bongs, the dinnerwares
All dust-filled with the tracks of spiders through
Em. This is Entropy, the hitherto
Unrecognised protagonist. We owe
To it the randomness with which things go
These verses are a paean to it. Yes
Let everyone avow their praise: To Mess!
***
FIRST TEXT