Peco's

The bar is empty, the corner table old
The corner table is mine.
Page, Plant and James D Morrison
Is screaming across strange days
Ghost songs from the past
To three drunken women (and I)
Empty and lightheaded
From too little loving
(Or too much).
"Is everybody in?
We're about to begin!"

Sometimes I want to say nothing
Because sometimes I feel nothing
But nothing is still a feeling.
Sometimes I want to be
The blinding burst of sunlight
Glinting off a sliding windscreen.
But words have a way of homing in,
Painting little paintings,
Thumbnails for my daydreaming.

I'm going to get me a woman
Who'll say she loves me
Even if it's not true.
Who will whisper dirty nothings
Caressing a spliff between her
Fading red lips
On flaming red evenings
Fading to black.
Who will write me little poems
On crushed white napkins
While she waits for me
On other people's beds and kitchens
For a while for a while.

It's so comfortable and thoughtless here
It's so comfortable to be lonely
I could curl up and fall asleep forever.

Outside the day is dying
Outside the day is dying in soft slow motion
And around the corner
The city waits to swallow me up
The city waits to swallow me up whole.

I like my corner table
And the empty chair for company
We are shrouded in cigarette smoke
While I write bad poetry
But bad poetry needs writing too.
It's like waiting for nothing
But nothing also needs waiting for.

I think I'll order another beer
It's not cold enough
It's never cold enough
And I still drink too much.
But it keeps the world in focus
On lazy afternoons
And it keeps the city
Waiting around the corner
From swallowing me up whole.