Blank Tears

This was written after a hearing Luke Wright's Mr Blank, this summer:

So anxious to get a front seat for this gig
I’d been hanging around for ages
Made friends with all the available bar staff
While drinking away all my wages.

Got my usual spot: centre left of the front row
And above the din of a settling crowd I met,
‘Alex’ who, proclaiming himself a poetry virgin
had only popped in to avoid getting wet.

While the rain drizzled outside, I filled ‘Alex’ in;
“This guy’s a legend, think Cooper-Clarke minus the punk”
I may have burbled on further, but who’s to know
After all, I was drunk.

Luke’s last show was so bright and light hearted
But this was so much darker, so brutally honest
I didn’t have long before my prickling eyelids started
to drip.

Maybe it was the weather, or perhaps it was the wine
but I’d been feeling pretty weepy all day.
I don’t wanna be a ‘star’. I just want to be talented.
To make words rhyme and to avoid cliché.

Brushing the falling drops away,
I attempted an honest grin.
The effect was somewhat ruined though,
by the snot running down my chin.

By the time the poem had ended
My tears had finally taken their leave
So all that remains of my irrational response
is one black smear on one grey sleeve.