Friday 7 July 2017

THE REAL COOL BRITANNIA



back then
in 199-oh-biscuit or whenever
us proto-grungers 
us ectasy-hippies
us norm-cores
us straggle-pups and strange ducks
well
we 
wouldnt
wear
seatbelts

sticking it to the ( health & safety ) man
in dumb young bravado

chasing headlight rabbits
down the wooded quarry fucktown lanes
in new-car scent magic-tree fords

playing
the bends
barratt
generic techno
new riders of the purple sage
the airplane

on phillips compact cassettes 

we would pick a direction
drive till we hit the coast
with a carrier bag of beer
between my adidas feet

marlboro reds filled the ashtray

and
we
played
till
dawn
in
the
surf
and
sand
and
in the stink under amusement piers

we would break stuff
we would build stuff
we would look for ufos

we would shout BOAT if we saw a tanker
leviathan like out on the grey waves

we would laugh at statues and monuments
of epic irrelevance 
to us
to all we knew
and to the chill and salty night

we would eat ourselves awake
in empty service stations 
watching the traffic spread
or in truckers greasy spoons
the morning editions unread

we would pay with a fistful 
of creased luncheon vouchers
won
in
night-shift
break-time
poker

we would drive home 
sated and wordless
counting bridges and road kill

listening to
faith no more
little feat
and the holy modals

we were secret and weird
boxed and unboxed
our young denial unspoken

we were out-of-time
in-the-desperate-moment
anonymous on the grey motorways
undulating tongue

and
we
were
juvenile vandalous uncaring
in
those
long gone
sweet nothing
days

when we owned nothing
but owned it all


Image result for philips compact cassette

from edition.cnn.com

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