Vodka

Dulling lights of Soho’s Vodka Bar
grilled the ache in my throat,
exulted American and Japanese tourists
sipped their £10 shots, brewed by mice in Finland
or infused with taste of dying tortoise

My last stop before the station
devoured as chemical waste from a Polish factory,
bottle rattled against keys in my pocket
trouser seams were merely intravenous

Wandered lonely as a clown
o’er vales, kebab shops  and rat-soaked alleys
which hosted hidden bottles
labelled ‘nothingness’ to ‘never’

London, you were a lady dressed as a whore
stilettoes clicked love into the gutters

Beyond the curved spine of Brighton Pier
and strangers fucking in the bushes,
the cobbles were no home for drunken bones.
Luscious smell of my girlfriend
stretched the pillow to window
but warmth  was Mrs Smirnoff
nested under the mattress

Hungover in excelsis
Hallelujah to hallucinations,
did the Virgin Mary spread
upon stained glass window
really wink, undress and collect
my tears in a paperback chalice?

One September morning drunk to Hell
sought deity in silence,
retraced footsteps  of brides, grooms and mourners
along Liverpool Cathedral’s nave,
envied those kneeling hoping for salivation
rosary draped  over fingers
as blood on crematorium curtains