Nightclub poems

City girl

 

She gave it her best
Shot
She threw herself in
Wholeheartedly
She loved the tarmac
Rolled on pavements
Into gutters
She poked her fingers into
Exhaust pipes
And licked them clean
She stayed out all night
Because there's nothing so shitty
As the 24 hour city
She didn't cleanse
Tone or moisturise
Let urban grime
Care for her complexion
She stood
In the thick of it
And rubbed her eyes
She rubbed the dirt
Right in
She ate filth
Not hard this day and age
More fertilisers
More fat
As saturated as it comes please
She took up passive smoking
As a hobby
She washed her clothes
You'd never know

 

 

 

 

Set text fever

Night time is the right time,

The time to change direction,

The time to shake your measly body,

Like you've never shaken anything before.

Seriously.

And honey, I don't care who you are,

How important, how seminal,

When the night call comes,

You will respond,

You will leave your daytime (don't you know who I am?) bullshit at home,

Put on the most ridiculous outfit,

Cram yourself in with the masses,

Sweat like a bastard,

And lose yourself,

Yes, you will lose yourself,

In the dark.

Take old Phil Larkin over there,

He is going for it big time,

He has finally removed that damn suit and tie,

Taken off those infernal glasses,

And look,

He has set himself free,

Free, free, freer than free,

It's beautiful to watch really,

He is grooving, totally grooving,

I think he might even be

Communicating with the bottom of his soul,

And whilst you wouldn't normally have him down

As a guy for leather shorts and nipple rings,

People can surprise you,

And there he is now,

Reaching for the higher plane,

Finding his happy place,

Dancing on a podium ,

With poppers up his nose.

And check Sylvia (the sweetheart),

She is smiling like you've never seen her,

One ecstasy tab short of a hospital visit,

She's right out there, flying.

I bumped into her just now in the toilet

And she grabbed my bare arm tight and said,

'This is so extreme

I don't think I can get any higher',

And I just hugged her,

We all did,

We told her that we loved her,

That we always will, whatever,

And that she should rave to the grave, baby,

Rave to the grave.

But it's hard for her because just look at Ted go,

He is the king of the jungle,

The ruler of the beasts,

The man to end all men,

No DJ can get near him,

With that huge frame,

That thick mane,

He is the Master at Work,

The Brother in Rhythm,

Standing in the middle of the dancefloor,

Barechested and vibrating,

With his arms outstretched,

His fingers pointing at something somewhere

That none of us can see,

And he is howling,

Full and hard like a wild creature

(You can't hear him for the music

But somehow we all feel it),

He is howling like a wolf.

That wants to eat and live.

High on life.

Starlight barking.

He is howling.

At the moon.

At the earth.

At the night.

Cocaine club

 

Constantly turning people into
Snorting machines
With dead eyes
No hearts
Empty memories
No souls
Spouting theories
Well
One tired theory over and over
One that means nothing to nobody
But as nobody is listening
Everybody's talking
This is not identified as a problem

 

 

 

 

The biggest love affair

 

We loved everybody
Even ourselves
We hugged everybody
Even the bouncers
We understood everything
But couldn't explain it
We went way, way too far in
It seemed a good idea at the time


All poems by Rachel Fox (some time after 1997)