Birthday Song

Stumbling out of The Pig and Ballbearing, Union Street,

Pissed as a monkey's wrench,

I prop myself against a lampost

Loosen my tie and shout at the stars:

Have I really been tumbling out of The Pig and Ballbearing, Union

   Street,

For twenty five years ?

Twelve Prime Ministers, eleven US presidents, fourteen major wars, two marriages,

Three kids, seven different jobs, one appearance in court (fine unpaid).

And as I stumble against a lampost outside The Pig and Ballbearing, Union

   Street,

I realise my life is smouldering somewhere in the back of my mind

Entangled, no longer seamless or glued together, floating in a great cess-pit of history that only I  

   can unravel.

Fearless I jump, outside The Pig and Ballbearing, Union Street,

Into the great pool of my twenty five years, pissed as a monkey's wrench,

And wade through the debri, some of it packed

In boxes marked DO NOT DISTURB, some of it floating

Like blocks of ice, translucent and yet (tantalisingly) unreachable.

Still I persevere, going deeper and deeper

Into the hinterland that is my life

A girl outside the chip shop says to her boyfriend:

“What's that nob head doing ?” And her boyfriend says: “It's alright.

He's just searching for twenty five years and more of his life”

And puts down his cone of chips and holds his girlfriend close.

An hour passes before I stop, exhausted, look at myself in a shop window

Stare down the kind of man who has to piece together his existence.

All our lives are nothing but great blocks of ice

Pools to wade in and out of, labelled boxes left unopened, debri to be untangled.

And I smile in the shop window, straighten my tie, pleased that I am just like everybody else

Pissed as a monkey's wrench, staggering my way home

Cheeks puffed out, singing my birthday song.