New Beast On Kilburn Streets

Ou sont les fucking Drunks de Kilburn d'antan

It pads as soft as a Yeti on snow,
It has no physical form or smell
Nor can its dread presence be discerned
By any bloodcurdling howl, shriek or yell.

It pads as soft as a Yeti on snow,
Through shadows, alleys, shop doorways and gates
Past the fragrant wheelie bins
To where the drunks used to congregate

There, by the side of the cash machine,
They loved to urinate, vomit and sing
And when stout citizens passed them by
To offer to smash their fat faces in.

But now those merry drunks have gone
Like yesterday's fashion, like yesterday's snow
Like dissidents wearing concrete boots
Flown out over the ocean where nothing will show.

There's a drunk-shaped silence beside the cash machine,
Stout citizens pass and start to forget
How bourgeois normality once was perfumed
With cider smelling breath and threats

For it padded up softly as a Yeti on snow,
Led the drunks away in firm legal embrace
It came and went, it was an ASBO
And when our turn comes, we'll be gone without trace.

Peter Murry