The Company of Men

Before my voice even broke
I turned my back on being a bloke

You see, I grew up in Colchester
Where very little culture stirs
A soldier town where cabbies boast
‘bout how they used to beat up Blur

and me in bottle green cords
coming back from after-school activities
would see from the windows of my father’s Ford
what I thought boys all grew up to be

smashed-glass vowels, pastel polo shirts
the gnarled veterans of a thousand fight nights
mushroom chinos and blocky arses
brandishing bottles of Smirnoff Ice

Nice

By 14, In the flashing lights of the under-18 disco,
I saw kids so weighed down
with the gold round their necks
that they boogied like mini forty-five-year-olds
middle-aged teenagers with dragon tats
And it just left me so cold
I thought I don’t want to be like that

So by 16 I was arty
I used to cry at parties
And pour out my little heartsie-wartsy
To girls who listened well
I’m different! I’d say
No one understands me
That’s why I write this poetry
Do you want to see?
It’s very… personal

My God! teenage girls were easy to impress
Just paraphrase the Manics and their views on “otherness”
And you’ll get your greasy paws on many a nubile breast
But alas just like a teenage boy I knew it couldn’t last
And after years of avoiding my fellow men I arrived at an impasse
University – a Casanova’s hell
Where all the other girly-boys wrote poetry as well

Christ! It was like being in a room with sixteen mes
It was like Green Peace had sneezed
This is a verse about an orphanage I helped build in Belize

An interrogators spotlight and a mirror, I was like Dorian in the loft
I was so in touch with my feminine side I’d ripped my bollocks off

Something drastic had to be done
No more Malibu and coke
I had to follow Kylie’s bum
Yes I had to be a bloke

So I sought the company of men
The company of men
Adams, Stewarts, Peters, Craigs
Davids, Barrys, Glenns.

Not the kind of girly boys
that hid behind their fringes
Normal guys that liked football
And motor cars and minges

They all had such gall
And the posters on their wall
were emblazoned with such wit
One said “room with a view,”
but it didn’t mean a view
it just meant a big pair of tits.

The company of men
Mine’s a lager, again
I hope they print my joke about cocks
In next month’s FHM

And I found myself thinking
What’s wrong with this?
We all like to go drinking
And we stand up when we piss
We can hang out, not actually hang out
Just get together and shave off our stubble
Locating the clitoris -- what’s all that about?
Pint of beer? Make mine a double! Pint of beer …

Oh who was I kidding?
I thought Lucy Pinder was the minister for foreign affairs
Although some of the other chaps did think it was a good idea
I just didn’t fit in

So I’d flit between nights out chasing skirt
In a drunken stupor
And nights chasing the perfect metaphor
Discussing the pros and cons of BUPA

until the nights in with the girly boys
turned into hideous benders
and the search for a shit-hot simile
ended up with us swinging our members
Have you seen my extended metaphor
And it’s in iambic pentameter
Hurling one-liners at each other
With all the restraint of a cab-rank punch up

And yet meandering back through terraced streets at dawn
With a chinoed ape pushing along a stolen Tesco trolley
I heard sentiments so warm
And at times the most precise insights into human folly

Till it became clear that I’d been quibbling over dialect
Someone will say tomato his mate will say ketchup
But at heart we’re all frightened the same
What’s in polo shirt? What’s in a name?
The clink of a pint glass?
The scratch of a pen?
The cry of a baby?
The company of men.