deepundergroundpoetry.com
Closing Time at the Dead End Pub
Laughter howled from the bowels of carpets
Stained, trodden to the bone, unsanitised….
The Landlord played prodigal son to
Infirmed and illegitimate infants.
Salavation Army tambourines trilled
Redemption against a deftly death score,
Lonely leitmotif asked who should I frame this evening?
A sea of cataract stars seemed open to invitation.
Pat returned from the bar
His leg trailed as a girder through sand.
Red eyes met mine in complicit communion
Even the rain is not brave enough to fall in this town
Remember that night we went fishing and it snowed in April
I returned my catch to their lake home,
Pat stoned their heads until papier-macabre.
He smirked that kind of smirk
Which only killers can do.
It’s written in stone.
Streets upon streets of granite slate,
‘Baron Munchausen Syndrome’
Medicates witheringly dull lives,
Fear is the phone ringing during soap-opera tales:
Not for Pat and his kind.
Pat’s gaze drank the window,
Coughed first sight of Christmas
Into tinselled coffins, decorated cell.
The world is full of bastards Rob.
You see they not only killed him
When they left my brother’s body
Astride our parents’ grave
Stabbed to fuck….they killed me
Even in the shallowest water
We can be out of our depth.
An intake of breath, heavier
Than Pat’s knuckles creased into the table.
Oh, how they begged me not to avenge
Revenge should be left to the courts
Fuck that Rob, on my parents’ grave……
On knees, bent and buckled they begged
Eileen already cried for forgiveness
For she knew, she cunting knew
Broken jukebox would have played Johnny Cash,
Pitney’s ‘A Town Without Pity’ -
“Why don’t they help us, try to help us.”
Vinyl veranda of song cement the foundations.
He gurgled you know, gurgled like a bastard baby
The blade felt good in my hands, but better in him
The police knew me and I just………
His voice trailed like a siren
Into the never-ending distance.
“Haven’t you all got a home to go to?”
The barmaid’s cleavage beckoned lost souls
Last orders, to hills only alive with the sound of mucus.
I kissed him on the cheek and was gone.
Turned my collar against the iced arrows,
Salt rain began to fall from heavenly skies.
It swept my quiff into the gutter.
Stained, trodden to the bone, unsanitised….
The Landlord played prodigal son to
Infirmed and illegitimate infants.
Salavation Army tambourines trilled
Redemption against a deftly death score,
Lonely leitmotif asked who should I frame this evening?
A sea of cataract stars seemed open to invitation.
Pat returned from the bar
His leg trailed as a girder through sand.
Red eyes met mine in complicit communion
Even the rain is not brave enough to fall in this town
Remember that night we went fishing and it snowed in April
I returned my catch to their lake home,
Pat stoned their heads until papier-macabre.
He smirked that kind of smirk
Which only killers can do.
It’s written in stone.
Streets upon streets of granite slate,
‘Baron Munchausen Syndrome’
Medicates witheringly dull lives,
Fear is the phone ringing during soap-opera tales:
Not for Pat and his kind.
Pat’s gaze drank the window,
Coughed first sight of Christmas
Into tinselled coffins, decorated cell.
The world is full of bastards Rob.
You see they not only killed him
When they left my brother’s body
Astride our parents’ grave
Stabbed to fuck….they killed me
Even in the shallowest water
We can be out of our depth.
An intake of breath, heavier
Than Pat’s knuckles creased into the table.
Oh, how they begged me not to avenge
Revenge should be left to the courts
Fuck that Rob, on my parents’ grave……
On knees, bent and buckled they begged
Eileen already cried for forgiveness
For she knew, she cunting knew
Broken jukebox would have played Johnny Cash,
Pitney’s ‘A Town Without Pity’ -
“Why don’t they help us, try to help us.”
Vinyl veranda of song cement the foundations.
He gurgled you know, gurgled like a bastard baby
The blade felt good in my hands, but better in him
The police knew me and I just………
His voice trailed like a siren
Into the never-ending distance.
“Haven’t you all got a home to go to?”
The barmaid’s cleavage beckoned lost souls
Last orders, to hills only alive with the sound of mucus.
I kissed him on the cheek and was gone.
Turned my collar against the iced arrows,
Salt rain began to fall from heavenly skies.
It swept my quiff into the gutter.
Published 18th Oct 2022
Author's Note
ERULGCT 190. True story, interspersed with bit of poetic licence. Known some truly bad folk, but rarely submit (on here anyway) for fear of sounding like a fantasist. More selective of my friends these days.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
likes 8
reading list entries 6
comments 13
reads 303
Commenting Preference:
The author encourages honest critique.
19th Oct 2022 00:08am
19th Oct 2022 9:36am
I get your drift Paul and the pubs are full of bull-shitters. Short of attaching newspaper clippings etc there's not much I can do. The pub here is just used as a conduit to tell something grim & real.
19th Oct 2022 1:41am
This is a great piece of narrative poetry. The use of puns can feel a little obstructive to the rhythm at first, but it creates a dialectical world, feeling like a readable Finnegans Wake. I loved this piece; it’s a proper short story, told as a poem. It’s chilling but also comfy in the atmosphere it creates, reminding me a touch of the stories stylised as tales told in gentlemen’s clubs that were popular in the early twentieth century.
19th Oct 2022 9:42am
You're too kind Runes. I appreciate you get the cultural & literal allusions. Don't think it really works as poetry to be candid. And as stated in the Author's Note it's not a theme I will be returning to in here. Diolch.
19th Oct 2022 3:19am
This is epic. I love it! Tons of creative lines to jazz it into something almost sinister, but not threatening enough to chase off the heavier drinkers.
It's almost a mini-novel (novella?) all by itself. So full and vibrant, even if darkly tuned.
Can dark things be vibrant?
Excellent crafting, Rob!
It's almost a mini-novel (novella?) all by itself. So full and vibrant, even if darkly tuned.
Can dark things be vibrant?
Excellent crafting, Rob!
19th Oct 2022 9:50am
Many thanks Styx. Stoked it resonated for you. I've tried writing fiction, but it just veers off in different directions (even shorter stuff). Totally admire anyone who has the ability to complete a full piece of work.
Can dark things be vibrant? They are in my mind . Lol. Guess we live in a dark world.
Can dark things be vibrant? They are in my mind . Lol. Guess we live in a dark world.
Anonymous
- Edited 29th May 2023 7:45am
19th Oct 2022 10:03am
<< post removed >>
19th Oct 2022 2:22pm
Many thanks R. This time of year is always ripe for picking the nostalgia fruits. It was deliberately disjointed to replicate the setting and drunken mind. I make no claims to being bad, but it amuses me immensely when some folk reference themselves as being bad. Really? Most don't appear to have the strength to fart into a paper bag. Onward & Upward. Wob
21st Oct 2022 9:22pm
I found the dialogue interspersed with the milieu, the ache of the close in particular, to have a complex and nostalgic weave of emotion and all of it very relevant to the human condition on the whole, where all things occur simultaneously. There is, what seems to be, a kind of deliberate sing song to some of the stanzas such as the 7th, which counterpoints the gravitas of the exchange. It's proportionally perfect and thoroughly engaging narrative.
21st Oct 2022 10:49pm
Diolch. Appreciated. Doesn't really work for me as poetry, but I always respect your comments and insights.
26th Oct 2022 5:04pm
Well you pulled me in with Dead End Pub for sure.
But again the imagery has me in such a Halloween mood.
Laughter howled from the bowels of carpets making me think of Twilight Zone.
Where the suffering souls are forever caught in this place.
The bowels of the carpet stained with their blood for eternity.
Trodden to the bone, the rotting flesh worn off long ago.
Perhaps the landlord is Satan. Punishing these infirmed infants.
And those tambourines represent all the good these people never did in their lives.
The score being that there is no redemption to be found now.
Each person with their own leitmotif and framed within it.
The sea of cataracts obscuring heaven, there is no invitation there now.
Ah, Pat found is way into Hell... red eyes of a newly placed tortured soul.
Rain is from the heavens, so it definitely does not fall here.
Why return your catch to the lake of fire.
Bludgeoning it's head in an attempt to kill your own suffering.
But I suppose you can always make something out of papier-macabre.
It feels like an accomplishment that is written on a tombstone.
And these streets of granite slate are so beautiful, this valley of death
So many addictions and medication in this attempt to escape the inevitable.
The phone ringing is usually just another soap-opera tale...
In this incredible insane drama called life, or in this case death.
Oh yes! this macabre Christmas holiday that I can see so clearly.
Tinseled coffins, dead branches with bodily ornaments decorating hell.
All these fiery lights that scorch the flesh and the smell is all consuming.
Death has a way of taking others with him when he comes to collect someone.
Part of you dies too as you weep at the grave, this portal to a new dark opera.
Where you feel like you died too and perhaps you did, at least some parts.
Putting you head under the shallow water while the evil spirits hole you there.
Suffocating in the depths of despair and emptiness while asking for salvation.
Your hands sinking and bound forever in this table of terrors.
While they beg for forgiveness but there is none to be had. Just more suffering.
The courts of Hell have no rules and they sentence you again and again.
And still they allow you to take your vengeance, to kill and send more there.
She absolutely cunting knew, but it's far to late for understanding now.
The broken jukebox playing her screams, along with those of so many others.
Vinyl veranda of song cementing the foundations with bones and burned flesh.
Gurgling sounds of choking on the blood of vengeance and demons claws.
A blade made of his brother's bone sinking deep as the sirens blared.
"Haven't you all got a home to go to?" But this is home now... This Deadend Pub.
The barmaid's cleavage giving some glimmer of excitement that can never be had.
She just serves them plasma tainted with maggots to drink in the mucus of past sins.
One last kiss to seal the fate perhaps ice arrows melting instantly in the fire.
But not before they penetrate the heart and soul sending chilling relief for a second.
Salt raining from above into open wounds in an eternal torture but there is no water.
A quiff is the last thing that burns away illuminating these pyres of bodies.
But again the imagery has me in such a Halloween mood.
Laughter howled from the bowels of carpets making me think of Twilight Zone.
Where the suffering souls are forever caught in this place.
The bowels of the carpet stained with their blood for eternity.
Trodden to the bone, the rotting flesh worn off long ago.
Perhaps the landlord is Satan. Punishing these infirmed infants.
And those tambourines represent all the good these people never did in their lives.
The score being that there is no redemption to be found now.
Each person with their own leitmotif and framed within it.
The sea of cataracts obscuring heaven, there is no invitation there now.
Ah, Pat found is way into Hell... red eyes of a newly placed tortured soul.
Rain is from the heavens, so it definitely does not fall here.
Why return your catch to the lake of fire.
Bludgeoning it's head in an attempt to kill your own suffering.
But I suppose you can always make something out of papier-macabre.
It feels like an accomplishment that is written on a tombstone.
And these streets of granite slate are so beautiful, this valley of death
So many addictions and medication in this attempt to escape the inevitable.
The phone ringing is usually just another soap-opera tale...
In this incredible insane drama called life, or in this case death.
Oh yes! this macabre Christmas holiday that I can see so clearly.
Tinseled coffins, dead branches with bodily ornaments decorating hell.
All these fiery lights that scorch the flesh and the smell is all consuming.
Death has a way of taking others with him when he comes to collect someone.
Part of you dies too as you weep at the grave, this portal to a new dark opera.
Where you feel like you died too and perhaps you did, at least some parts.
Putting you head under the shallow water while the evil spirits hole you there.
Suffocating in the depths of despair and emptiness while asking for salvation.
Your hands sinking and bound forever in this table of terrors.
While they beg for forgiveness but there is none to be had. Just more suffering.
The courts of Hell have no rules and they sentence you again and again.
And still they allow you to take your vengeance, to kill and send more there.
She absolutely cunting knew, but it's far to late for understanding now.
The broken jukebox playing her screams, along with those of so many others.
Vinyl veranda of song cementing the foundations with bones and burned flesh.
Gurgling sounds of choking on the blood of vengeance and demons claws.
A blade made of his brother's bone sinking deep as the sirens blared.
"Haven't you all got a home to go to?" But this is home now... This Deadend Pub.
The barmaid's cleavage giving some glimmer of excitement that can never be had.
She just serves them plasma tainted with maggots to drink in the mucus of past sins.
One last kiss to seal the fate perhaps ice arrows melting instantly in the fire.
But not before they penetrate the heart and soul sending chilling relief for a second.
Salt raining from above into open wounds in an eternal torture but there is no water.
A quiff is the last thing that burns away illuminating these pyres of bodies.
26th Oct 2022 7:31pm
Blimey. One of the most in-depth comments left on my tatty poems. Truly flattered. I enjoyed the macabre annotations, which pour like dark truths through a stained glass window. I often wonder is there a place in Hell for me and my friends? Double Diolch.
26th Oct 2022 7:43pm
Well I was easily inspired. I wrote in my mind as I read... no editing, this is the stream of consciousness that I had inspired by your words as is. So if you enjoyed it then that makes me happy. There has definitely been a place in hell for me here so not real sure where I will go next I guess. But I suppose the suspense can be thrilling.
