Ice on the tooth brush, freezing bed sheets, everything as fuel, old shoes, lino. Fear of school, corporal punishment, six-of-the-best on each hand. Hands reddened, burning. Fear of the confessional – Bless me Father for I have sinned. A dance too soon with death. Windowless slavery of five-year apprenticeship, a printer’s devil, lead-stained fingers, forty-year pension. Escape from prescribed monotony. Pubs replacing churches. Revolutionaries. Marxists, Nihilists, like-minds, a book in the pocket, Turgenev, Camus, Sartre, Kafka, lost souls, smell of weed, incense, posh girls, artists flinging colours, Bach heightening. Gigs and reels. A dance with life, my face against her fall of hair, bodies closing in on curves.

Gerry McDonell