Sitting round a table in their local

A few lonely souls gather

Sinking jars of dark and mild

Down to the bottom of the glass

Weather beaten faces and shaking yellowed fingers

Telling each other the way it should be

The way it is

And the way it was

Watching rings of trickled froth

Coagulate in spiralled signals of no more

Wondering why they have ended up in this place again

The space between the broad and the narrow

With brown stained ceilings

A place where the mind can’t comprehend

and at the end of an evening the hands cannot touch

the sides of the street

never thinking of all the other roads and lanes they could have walked

but didn’t

choosing instead to stay

in the place they know

and where folk won’t try to hug you or kiss you on the cheek

where a whole generation passed them by

many moons ago

as they swallowed back all that they were told

about the uncertain delights and dangers of foreign climes

twenty miles down the road

deciding it were best to stay put

with a job for life

until it were, all closed down by she whose name uttered

renders a chill

half way down the back

and now they sit and moan

spit and crow to themselves

a crowded lads only pack

of bedraggled toothless grey-haired wolves

who have lost none of their bite and steel

and will gladly chew it over

for the sake of age and just another pint