Drugs are wasted on the young

I must have rung the Council
fifteen times or more
to warn them of the bloke that lives next door
the one that wraps his microwave
in baking foil

I’ve seen him in the street
arms milling
like a Mississippi steamboat,
howling at hoardings
advertising HP Sauce.

Sometimes it hurts.
Can’t even look
makes me want to hook
a screwdriver through both eyes

It’s not just me myself
I’m thinking of.
There’s standards of behavior
to consider.
Codes that mark us out
from mangy alley cats
who leave their rancid trail
on reeking stairwells

It’s not like I’m the blushing bride.
Seen what’s inside
men’s blather after closing time.
more often than my poor old mind
can bear.

It’s the kids I fret about
when he trundles out the doorway.
Flapping open,
tackle waving
like an anenome.

Drugs are wasted on the young.
Spare me the pension credits
and the cammomile tea.
Give me a fistful of ecstasy instead.
I want to dream like they do.
Let me fly across the sea
and come to rest
in a shaded garden.