My Poetry: St James' Street

St James' Street

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**For reference, St James' St is the main street from Brighton to Kemp Town and is renown as the gay area of the town**

Before first coffee remedy
refreshes hungover head
sirens pierce the silence
of humming Autumn streets,
another city dweller
fighting
for the chance
to see another day.
Armed with muddy lexicon,
the complexion
of rural england
still on his boots,
the country boy hits St James' Street,
senses pricked
by prevailing street life echoes
from Tranny-oke bars,
or, gay dads strung outside
dinner time Bulldog bars,
or, students blowing grants
on a black hooker
opening her knees
to close a coke deal,
or, colour blind hobos begging
for pink pounds
from degree level
call centre employees,
learning to cope
with careers
of between job jobs
stuck on two rung stairways
to petit-bourgeois heaven,
optimistic the storms
will stay at sea
and not rock
an urban ideal
in which the fight
or flee instinct
is nullified with beer and preening.
The north-Norfolk lad pulls into a pub
furnished with quiffs
and hipsters,
five quid jean shirts
bought from curbside racks
line the bar;
one becomes two
before midnight leaving
with a quick-witted Irish girl
he shares lines and kisses,
but not numbers, with.
Then before he knows
the orange street lamp
light thrown through
the bedroom window,
which cast shadows
on the off-white walls,
dissapates,
as a new day dawns,
with all its promises.