I met him in a bar and I asked him some questions
He had just got out of the blue station
He was to be committed to the system.
‘Why did you do it?’
His English was broken
‘Woman left, job went, family
Nothing to do with me
World falls down all around’
But you’ve still got you
‘What am I?’ he asked
With all the earnest
In the thimble-full of it on this Earth.
‘I haven’t worked that out yet
But you’re still something’
He told me how he’d dropped
Sleeping pill after sleeping pill
Into the endless red road of his gullet
And he'd taken the rope up to the third floor
Attached it to the light bulb
And presently fallen asleep.
‘You’re like that ship in Kuwait I said
‘Full of ping-pong balls and floating to the surface-
The world’s not laughing at you;
It’s got its arm around your shoulders’
He liked that and he stood me a beer.
