Saturday Night Poem by Grahame Lockey

Like gnats, strange lights bother
the marsh. Crickets chirp, bats
skim across the ale-dark night
and a breeze rustles the leaves
of trees still bolder than the sky.

There's a scuttle in a hedgerow
as, in with the plashing of boots
along the splashy track, voices near
bobbing like lanterns.
Forms huddle past, the youngest

flame-faced with lamps on sticks -
self-involving banter pulling near
the ends of the earth. One slows,
cocks his head as the marsh stars
recluster; aware of trees, he sees

the others looking back for him.
They trudge on, well used by now
to brambleflicks, puddle-smooth
pot-holes, impending silhouettes.
Through a spinney, lights gather

too geometrically for Jack o' lanterns.
A dog barks. As laughs burst out
into the yard, they duck beneath
the broad oak beam into Barleycorn
air, odorous with company, smoky

with stories, stirred aswirl by songs,
beaten by the fist-handled bashing
of tankards on thigh-thick tabletops
and close the door. Behind coarse
curtains, lights like swallowed lives
wispy as grip-groped air, egg them
mesmerrily out into the quiet marsh -

sirens. A home defeat; a taunting
jab of arms. Doubled by a bonnet,
someone pewks. A bottled bloke
feels he's bleeding. What's happened
comes in flashes like a police car.

The marsh, black as an underlit embankment,
dry as hard macadam, is divided. Gas
emissions hang above it, wispily. High,
falling, a lager can twinkles weakly, thuds.
Language, thick as a headache, splits

under a Stanley knife. Taxis like vultures
circle, meters pecking. Orange lights
regular as dashed lines quicken like pulse.
By tomorrow, roads home will have sunk
into some other marsh. Like Saturday night.