Saturday Night At The Crown Posada

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE CROWN POSADA aka

MEN

Michael Blackburn

The poem was written for a collaboration with international book artist Les Bicknell. It formed part of his exhibition, The Ordinary Made Extraordinary, at Essex University in February 1994. The poem was performed at the opening of the exhibition. The resulting book was produced in a limited edition of 10 copies signed and numbered by both poet and artist . The original title was Saturday Night at the Crown Posada. This was changed to Men for the exhibition. The Crown Posada is a pub near the quayside in Newcastle upon Tyne. This is the first appearance of the poem in print (2009).

no sooner in than oh no it's George again I'd know that loud voice anywhere stammering to a to a punchline we'll listen to your tunes George but spare us the jokes (wrapped in a yellow duster his shining mouth organ) George, Gatherer of Pots, Not-So-Surreptitious Swiller-of-the-Not-Quite-Empty Pints, Gadgie of the Quayside Pubs, Dispenser of Crap Jokes, Stammer Guardian of the Sacred Tongue of Geordie, Scatterer of the Gloomy Spirit, Collector of the Fallen Coin, Eternal Friend of the Lonely Drinker, Unfixed Star in the Saturday Night Firmament, Character Designate of the Student Classes, Film-Extra, Good Fellow, George...but purra sock in it willya man PRACTISE THE RITUALS PROPER MY FRIEND (it's my guardian angel, tugging my sleeve) Observe, he says, the queue at the bar: see how yon lass down there is serving her mates and regulars first. Note how the lad up this end is harassed and new at the job, how this skunk-faced marra beside you waves his sticky glass in the air as if he were about to sprinkle its fragments in bitter anointment on anyone close enough. Ah but see there's a gap where the lass turns to look at you as she slams the till shut, and behold her smile. Up, my lad, and proffer the cash and the words that unlock the pumps. TWO PINTS OF SCOTCH PLEASE. Ah bliss. Her brown eyes. The brown liquid. The promise. The music. The cool glasses. The tinkle of (not much) change.

You can, of course, decide to stand. But we decide to sit. There, not here. Back to the wall, with a pure view of bar, door and window. Wild west stuff. You see them coming in. You see them going out. And here's a little overhearing just to my right. Two blokes talk about old mates. And here's the English gist. On the Absent Johnny Mottram: some are born thick but Johnny Mottram worked at it. At thirteen demonstrated the motions of sexual intercourse between the desks, explained the meaning of the word prostitute. He married young and played around till his wife caught him out with his bit on the side. As she came in the door he went out the window, botching his jump with two broken arms. Twenty years on in the same pub. And he's still a moron. Oh look, there's Fat Henry just come in. Positions his arse to the left of the bar. That's HIS standpoint, you see. Nods to the lass, but she's too far away so he stares at the new lad, flustered still and trying to sort himself out. See Henry's own tankard hanging behind the bar. See the barely-legible inscription on its dull pewter greyness. He nods to the lad, explains. Training, it's called. Soon as you see me come in this bar, take that down and fill it with Scotch. I stand here, lad, nowhere else. Henry, that's me, that's my jar. Soon as you even think I'm coming in you fill that jar. Henry. That's me. They're all in tonight: George, Fat Henry, Don Dickhead The Mogadon Man, Frank the Fantasy Man...oh Christ here he comes

did I ever tell you about the time I drank 2000 cans of Special Brew in one day and then drove across Europe in a blue Maserati without being breathalysed or stopping for a piss well sometimes I'd smoke so many Camels I thought my head would explode but I still had my health no kid I used to play football every Sunday go swimming at lunch and you know I could swim 300 lengths underwater without taking a breath top scorer in the Sunday League twelve years running I almost had a trial for Sheffield Wednesday but by then I was a schoolboy millionaire from my first platinum disk at thirteen with my own band we called ourselves Pigs on Acid it was my idea by the time I was eight I could play banjo piano guitar violin harpsichord and flute they wanted me to join the London Philharmonic Orchestra but I had to think about the offer from Jesus College Oxford because I was brilliant at Maths but I wanted a real education so I dropped out of the whole thing and travelled around the world five times and when I came back I wrote a book about it and there were ten publishers fighting for it but that was when I entered my poetry phase and I won a big competition and everyone thought I was the next Ted Hughes and Faber and Faber were on their knees to me but I said stuff it mate I think your covers are crap and really I wasn't bothered because I was into films by then and dating Meryl Streep on the side but she got too serious by half and I had to dump her I just couldn't walk down the street without some woman throwing herself at me I'm not joking once you've had sex with 50 different women every day since before you reached the age of puberty you appreciate having a little time on your own to play the violin or write your twentieth book or start up a trout farm in the Highlands with your uncle who's a good friend of one of those ancient sixties rockstars so nowadays I take it a bit slower like I've cut down the fags to 500 a day low tar and 60 bottles of bourbon neat and 10

new cars a year and sex only 40 times a minute but I can still swim a mile underwater without a breath and I bet you I can beat everyone in this room at Scrabble and poker did I ever tell you about the time I beat Bobby Fischer at chess? BUT I THINK WE CAN DO WITHOUT THIS AT THE MOMENT and there's Larry and Mick, and Jojo and Scumbag back from Saudi, and Harry the Bastard shouting about London and Fred the Car and Jake the Camra Man... but my angel is telling me to look at the less than a pint of liquid in my officially one pint glass but everyone likes a good head on their ale says Jake, swinging his belly past my ear tradition, he says, like watered-down beer; insist, he says, insist on your rights (and get yersel barred, says Harry). Meanwhile in the corner by himself Denis the Duffer, trying to catch anyone's eye: his category The Someone Who's Always Worse Off Than Yourself. The bloke who never hits it off with the lads and makes himself sick trying to keep up with their drinking who talks too loud when he should be quiet and mumbles when he should shout whose clothes are always just ten years out of date who drops hints as big as bricks about girls and big deals that no one picks up the bloke with the unerring eye for a bad bargain for the clapped-out and the duff that everyone sees coming whose personality is attractive as armpits whose banter's exciting as Lloyds Register whose life would make a saint weep thinking

thank God I'm not like him who battles against all odds for a good job and the respect of his peers and fails with boring consistency every time. And just across the way from him, sitting at the cramped table, sneakily staring at the figures of the two girls who sit sideways to him, ignoring him through their smoke and talk, Sam the Unpublished Poet, dressed in black. How serious he looks, how deep in obscure profundities and reams of erudition, how lost in raptures of heart-bursting emotion, how bitter at society's beery disdain for the sensitive, the fragile, the cultured, the...etc. He's penning a new poem in his (black) notebook. It's all to do with love and eternity and how they're both like drugs and how life turns round and kicks you in the crutch and he really fancies the girl on the right and is sure he's seen her on the mystical 41 bus in the last week and should he ask her something serious to get her interested... But over there, louder than he should be to a friend, look, says my angel, the Flaunter of Secrets himself, flapping a text in front of him This book, you see, this here book, this book contains all the rules, all the regulations, like, that the members must abide by. Contravention is a serious matter, it's no joke, mate, no laughing game. No, you can't have a look. It's against the rules to let you see the rules. Because you aren't a member, like, you aren't One of Us. Not anyone can join, you know, it's not for any old TomDick&Harry (Harry in his far corner shouts an' I wouldn't fucking want ta join!) Not that it's exclusive, though, not like one of them posh gentlemen's clubs or the poncey bloody golf club. Not one of them anyone for a gameset&match with Amanda and Charlie clubs. Nothing like that, but special, all the same. But you've got to be accepted. One black ball and wallop you're out. But don't go thinking we're a secret society like the masons, with their funny handshakes and little aprons and all that daft stuff.

No, but we do a lot for charity. We have a bloody good laugh. You never know, mate, one of these days, if you play your cards right... but no, you can't have a look in the book. I'm not so sure if he gets on my nerves as much as this fellow over here, the one we call

THE LUCKY BASTARD you know the guy that everyone likes the one that scores the goals gets the girls the exams the scholarships the lucky breaks the good job the inheritance from a long-forgotten uncle in Madagascar I don't know about you (says Harry) but I hate bastards like that

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