The Ballad of the Thirsty Man

A bit of exposition first about this post: I have a colleague in the creative industry (I am in it, shut up) who had a slightly creepy experience this weekend. She's a single mother, hard working, putting herself through Uni whilst maintaining her family and career, and is exactly what you'd picture if I was to say 'Irish beauty'... no, not the tracksuit, cigarettes and large bottle of cider along the Lagan towpath kind, that's only around a very specific part of Belfast.

So anyway, on Sunday morning a neighbour to whom she has never spoken landed drunk at her door at 4:30am hoping to make a call, because that's what ladies love, awakened from bed by a drunk guy who doesn't even know your name. Eventually after pissing off he came back at 5am to ask if she would like him if he was sober. God does love a trier.

After being my usual helpful self on Facebook (read that as 'not at all') I was inspired to write a poem in his honour:

I am in a boat lost far out at sea,
Surrounded by water yet there is none for me.
The sun rising on another dawn,
The fever of the night has not yet gone.
I need something to taste,
From this thirst to be set free,
And awake my soul from this melancholy dream.

Over there on yonder shore,
Is it a trick, mirage or something more?
Some fool of the light or maybe the brain,
A promise that I might be fulfilled again.
Streams of fire, sands so pale,
and cool waters pure for my thirst to sate,
To find this land could be nothing but fate.

Crashing on rocks and thrown asunder,
A hidden reef and waves booming thunder,
This haven of passion is not as expected,
my ardor, my thirst to be somehow rejected.
Yet maybe still the fates have conspired,
For hope there is in the waters below,
The fingers of the mermaid beckon me so.

Reaching out for that warm embrace,
I find myself now in another place,
A desert, alone, a shore with no name,
having lost my way to a growing shame.
Not merely for my journey
for I realise this land it belongs to me,
I have passed out at home, in a puddle of wee.

I did promise some dick jokes in my last post and this guy was being a pure dick, I like to be a man of my word.