Soho,
You’re a dirty old man dropping his trousers & peeling off his knickers (covered in moth holes), which may as well be a tissue for all the good they do, and there you crouch, down an alley in Meard street, ankle deep in vomit, as someone walks by you get a hard on.
Soho,
You’re a trussed up turkey, all feathers and pink, spatchcock turkey you, ‘just out with the gals’ you screech at those passing and yes we can see it’s your hens-do but is that your excuse? Those thighs all flesh and pink skinned seem to have eaten your dress, dear.
Soho,
There you are in China town, though I’m too bourgeois to go there anymore, I dine at the Ivy now and eat fillet mignon with a good glass of claret and plus I know you’re not down there for yum cha it’s those young Asian boys hanging about, you know the ones with fresh hips and brown eyes, they hardly speak any English but you don’t like them when they talk anyway.
Soho,
You’re a 52 year old mother from Essex lining up to see Jersey Boys in a Westend theatre. You’ve got a mortgage and 2.5 children and a husband that you wish held you at night, but he doesn’t, so you manage to get away occasionally and it’s London that you come to, yes London, you tell your friends back home over coffee, yes it’s London you tell your children over dinner, yes it’s London that makes you realise your sadness and it’s London you wish you could run away to.
Soho,
You’re a drunkard, lolling about on Dean street, getting thrown out of one watering hole and the next, and those tanned teeth of yours and gin blossom nose are drip drip drip dripping, please go clean yourself up, for Christsake you’ve pissed yourself again and you stink, you stink like boiled cabbage, but no no no it’s the rum rum rum you say, take me back to the bottle you say, I have no home you say.
Soho,
There you are on Old Compton street, standing outside the Admiral Duncan with a pint and a fag in your hand. I never knew, there I’d find you, lost in the sea of muscle and balding queers.
Soho,
You’re a vendor on Berwick Street selling me apples and pears, sometimes peaches, when they’re in season, and when I have 2 quid to spare, that isn’t going on my rent ahhh shit I’ve done it again stepped into a watery fishy puddle and my trousers are drenched and they reek of cod, ahhh shit now I’m gonna have to go change but I have no clean clothes and I don’t get paid till Friday.
Soho,
I’ve taken the dark staircase all the way down into Gerry’s bar and it’s 3am. I’ve walked into the toilet and the sign above the door says ‘abandon hope all ye who enters’, am I weary? No, not really, they’re playing jazz, Ella Fitzgerald blues, it’s the beat the beat and everything seems like it gonna be ok, of course it will be ok, so I go and have a line and dance, I dance to the Ray Charles blues, and I won’t stop till the morning.
Soho,
Its morning now I’ve woken up next to you how did I get into this bed with you? Oh no no no I must be dreaming it can’t be you.
Soho,
I want to be you. I want to feel you. The stormy rhythm of you. Shut up and hold me.