Saturday Night Gig

Tuning and chatter – building
                a hundred hands in the air
                and shouts, from the front
                (they’ve seen these guys play
                they’re fucking good live)

Clash of guitar and static distortion
   they toss their heads
   and flick smiles into the crowd
   mouth close to the mike
   bass and muffled diction

Drums stir movement
   the hundred hands
   grabbing at sound
   the hundred bodies
   trying to escape the ground

And then are the waves
   salt-water sweat
   tide sucks and pulls
   surging to the stage
   and drawn away again

Dark - and red lights
   search the room
   and a murky yellow
   filters lazy through mist

drawn in

and out

feet leaving the floor
no longer of their own accord

And suddenly over and suddenly gone
spilling out the door
   suddenly swamped in cold air
   sweet and hung
with blue midnight overhead.