Portrait of the Crusty in Repose

The dark purple stains of last night's red wine sit in the cracked dried flaps of the skin on his lips.

'Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Boring. Boring. Boring.' Repetition trips out of his mouth, little word crumbs that, if followed, might trace a path through the woods to a clearing marked 'Brain Damage, Lancashire'.

The sun beats down a steady 4/4 time. No bass.

He won't make eye contact. Instead, he retracts behind a wall of crumpled clothes and trying that little bit too hard not to care debonaire drunk asshole stare - the kind that fits at 21, looks pathetic at 45.

A few too many nights spent stumbling near the edge of the wide crevasse he let his dreams fall into, and so now he's bitter. He's pissed and sinking, snarling and flinching at the translucent midday shadow of empty bottles and drained desire. Smoking himself down to the filter and then, yellow fingered, flicking two at anyone who dares to not laugh at the strain of the joke he's performing. Goes like this:

Disintegrating Man - a self-aware and ironic statement, a rejection of bourgeois nicety and conformist living, a fuck you to good citizen, an acid gob in the eye of buttoned up Britain. A living protest punk circa 1976...

...but 33 years on in Britain, still pissed, it's a stretch - drum skin thin - to spin self-abuse and substance slavery as anti-establishment, as protest, as punk, when really the tune is passive flaccid mean old drunk.

But God and Shane McGowan bless 'im he'll keep trying.

The sun will keep 4/4 time, he'll keep the government in daily liquor tax, and flat on his back beneath the childrens' swings he'll spit and he'll snarl and he'll sing through the hole in his head that leads down, stinking, stained with red wine.