by Darius Rodrigues

 

Graham Cassidy

 

She said I can’t today

Maybe tomorrow

Just getting back to me he said

Makes me feel a lot richer

Inside

But I’m still on

Me arse

Signed Graham Cassidy

Was all on track

‘Til two hits

Fell off the table

The stable table.

 

Back in Burnley

There’s valleys called

Death or Happy

Battered blue disco balls

Shiny bloody hands

Had to read it aloud

Too slow and quiet applause

Eggwhites for stars

Shit nightclubs for sand

But here near Clapham Junction,

We sit beneath The Grand.

 

Yes, it’s boring!

Graham Cassidy, you’re fucking boring me!

said Graham Cassidy.

 

Wednesdays was a very strong coffee

Weightlifting and shirt ironing

Then a bath

It was perfect, fucking perfect

All through Thursday and Friday

They’d say Graham, you’re buzzing

You look good in the light

Even though the full moon is about to arrive

But on his wingspan sized room

His blistered fingertips were rubbing

To Graham Cassidy, Graham Cassidy said

There’s another end coming.

 

Jackie Diamond the comet

had soft spot for the talkalots

it was good when she said she’d fight the corner

even better when she said here’s one of your own

even though she was one-year younger

she’d say Look Graham Cassidy, look how you’ve grown.

 

No fucking way!

I used to go there too

Back when there were grooves before the buildings were new

When I don’t like something I just put a 1 at the end of it

But when I like it I put one of these … as in to be …

 

 

Bad WiFi™

 

 

Commit a crime in Piccadilly Circus

They’ll never make it through

The Traffic

Black cabs to the left

Ubers to the right

Swap the shovel for a blender

And the candlestick for a light

That imitates the natural sun

Light, and so is unnatural,

And the wired for the wireless

Hang him on the Bad WiFi™.

 

 

Users with their heads down

Fake violet fireflies

Freight driver gunning down

The queue with his fingers

Looking for a vine

Trying to be famous

Today a stranger took the picture

You’ll frame it on your mantelpiece

Do they have a mantelpiece?

Did you ask because of their shoes?

Or because they had your dead grandmother’s eyes?

 

The perfect way to end a day

Is a paradox

Leaving no room for error

Leaves you susceptible

To bed sores and the slow

Iris erosion of the kaleidoscope

Being injured when illusioning

Leaves heavy frost on hope

 

There’s the copy and pasters

The poster painters

And the spotlights

Then the rowers

The Sewers

And the lamp lights

 

Lean back lean back

Puffer in black

Wires in white

The office is my gym

I am absent like the wind

But I win at full time

I am the Adidas stripe

Free 24/7 stupidly insanely difficult impossible motorbike challenge

One eye winking hard 365 hard

Day long long long wasn’t it

wanker

Always gets political on a Tuesday

night.

 

Take me away to somewhere I could cry properly

Where the clouds are wet and sharp.

 

Trains

 

Obsessed by sharpness

Resolution darlings

i-dotters + T-crossers

your teeth reeks of bread baskets and self-help.

 

No more three leaf

magic no match

but blood rushes and butterflies

are groggy that’s why they’re so good

tie knots sloppy

pulled tight

by trains

have to use their might

have to push.

 

See the pennies gagged on the track?

(leading up to introduction of the under-30’s railcard

but no time to react)

now we need breathing schedules and quiet zones

to relax.

 

It’s not the time or the price
It’s not quicker there or back

I could stay here forever

I just wish it were faster.