Nightmare on Clarendon Street

(After W.S. Gilbert)

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache and the shutters can’t keep all the noise out,
you can learn all the joys of our Leamington noise as the clubs and the pubs chuck their drunks out.
Though you toss and you turn and you groan and you gurn, the ticking clock keeps on exploding.
And you’re on a short fuse as a day’s worth of news comes in flashbacks; your head is imploding.

Your bottom sheet crinkles, your wee willie winkles, your pillow defies every angle.
You’re restless and hot, top sheets in a knot and the whole bloody world’s in a tangle.
But still the drunks come in salute to their sun – that’s the lamppost that locks all the stars out.
From the mouth of a yob comes some puke, then a sob, then a chorus of, Who let the dogs out?

When you’re ready to dream, there’s a giggle, a scream, a stiletto quick click of retreating.
On the side avenue, at twenty past two, hushed voices are holding a meeting.
Then the motorbike game – that’s the bomb with your name – until it veers off at the corner.
And the blue flashing light of the nee-nawing night as a cop shouts, You’re booked. I did warn ya!

So I get out of bed with a pain in me head. Pipes rattle a glass full of water.
I pick up the glass thinking, this too will pass – Summer’s comin’ ‘n’ nights will be shorter.
5.30am and the juggernaut men yawn their brake hissing squeaks at the junction.
The rush hour begins, my dry eyes hold pins and I’m wondering how I can function.

At twenty to eight, with a clunk of the gate, the postman delivers the mail.
But most of it’s junk and my spirits have sunk as he tells me it’s blowin’ a gale.
I’m a zombified being with a sleep deprived spleen, no nightmares to speak of so far,
for nobody sleeps, here on Clarendon Street, in this Royal Town of Leamington Spa.

Julie Boden 2007