Save Yer!

He leaned through the
Volvo estate's window,
camo strides, shaved head,
life story in cartoon tats
down his sketch book back,
with pit bull and family deaths
by numbered star.
Their lingo, steeped in bro and geezer,
stomped life a while
re-arranging government,
friends and women, at the merest
lash of their leather tongues.
Watching and surmising
I breathed radio talk
awaiting a small selling space
to jump in and leapfrog
today's gossip quicksand,
but the gangland chatter
irked on.
My invisible tattoo's itch
shifted to mental burn,
I grew impatient,
the in-car voices, I thought
inventing them mafia connections
and underground scenarios.
Eventually,
abrasion grooved
my tetchy shoulders
and quitting the phone-in
I strutted for London,
just as stranger A removed
dark green overalls from a haversack
pulled them up to his booming
char of a voice,
and walked criminally
to the driver's seat
in an ambulance.

Jerry Pike