We used to play til the death of days
Now the kids go looking for the light 
Spoke sweet street prayers in good grace’s airs 
Now the kids going looking for the light 
A grazed knee was the least you’d see 
Now the kids go looking for the light 
With good homes a stones throw from the baddens
Though those kids went looking for the light 
From guns of sticks to rows of fists 
To the kids looking for the light 
We cross words with them that were older 
But they too were just looking for the light. 

She came from a small beach town but she dreamed of the city. She once went to one for university. But she doesn’t do that anymore. Her mum is sick. So they say. She got early retirement out of it but there was a huge court case around it. Make of that what you will. 
    Her mum named her Marilyn. She hated it. By day she was her mum’s full time carer and calloused target practice for her mum’s narcissistic ramblings. By night she danced at the Dollarino. She was always humming some song to herself. I always caught little bars of it as she passed by. Never could make out what it was. 
    The Dollarino mostly employed Eastern European girls who were like so many other someone’s and somewhere bounds on their way through Caine Town. Marilyn was the only girl who had some roots here. I never understood titty bars. Blokes splashing their hard earned cash just to leave with a hard on and a tonne lighter. Even the exceptions who paid for a little extra didn’t make all that much sense to me. Sex becomes a lot less sexy when you make it a transaction. 
    But whatever. 
    Who am I to judge? 
    Not like I weren’t spunking my hard earned cash either. The Dollarino was the only place open after midnight so it was obvious you’d find me there. 
    Marilyn fascinated me though. 
    Sad eyes know sad eyes. 
    She was the highest earner in the whole joint. She raked in thousands a night, all the girls looked up to her and she looked after them. Taught them how to take of themselves. She walked from podium to podium, hustler to brawler with her head held high and her varnished claws gleaming, ready to strike softly along the next suckers thigh, some poor lonely so and so in need of a little love. 
    Nature doesn’t punish the wicked. 
    It punishes the weak. 
    But what was that song she was always humming? I had to know. It had got stuck in my head and I found myself whistling it as I went about my day to day. For a time I couldn’t even remember where it had come from until she passed me one night and there she was again -- humming it! 
    That melody. 
    What was it!? 
    That night she stopped right by me and ordered a Bloody Mary. 
    “Hey Marilyn”
    “Hey Slim. Is tonight the night? You gonna have a dance?” 
    “Maybe next time” 
    “There’s never a next time with you” 
    “How you been?” 
    “Same old, same old” 
    “Not very interesting...” 
    “When does anything interesting happen around here...?”
    “True that,” I said. “Listen,” I continued, “what is that tune you’re always humming. It’s been stuck in me noggin’ for weeks.” 
    She stared right through me, as if she’d just walked into a memory absent of light. Nothing could be pictured. Only felt. 
    “I don’t remember”, she said. 
    A single solitary tear had risen in her right eye. She brushed it away. 
    “So why are you always humming it?” I asked. 
    She looked at the Bloody Mary that had just arrived. With a silent gulp she composed herself, sipped the Bloody Mary, sighed and then looked back to me. 
    “Every idealist needs something to whistle, Slim”, she said before taking another sip from the Bloody Mary, “when they’re disappointed.” She turned and went back to work. 

What’s the most you ever spent on a piece of art? How much did you pay? Did you know that Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s in 2024? Would you pay $6 million dollars for it? 
    Someone did. 
    I used to see art everywhere.
    I first saw Mad Jack in all his beer gut glory hold a crowd of hundreds in the palm of his blackened, tobacco hands with nothing more than the words that came from underneath his thick handle bar moustache. The hearts, minds and eyes of these unassuming, unsung, unknown saints, sinners and somewhere-bounds huddled together in the fine drizzle of a grey Saturday afternoon in Leicester Square where the grey and rain is a worthy canvas for any painter with laughter on his palette. 
    The Burger King pitch brimmed with these strangers who’d gathered and surrounded this gin-soaked, Byronic jester, fixated upon his charming, erratic, gait that seemed to snub physics and the mischievous witticisms he spewed. Even the punters in the Empire Casino had filled the terrace and balcony to see what they could. 
    Mad Jack Valentine’s act had a variety of elements the principle of which were contortion, equilibristics and juggling but, if you asked him, he’d say he was a comedian. He’d spent the first 15 minutes of his show building his crowd by bantering with them, imitating them, ridiculing them. 
    Some took it better than others. 
    To prep his stage he needed very few elements: a speaker with which he blared Low Rider by WAR, a mesh-less tennis racket, a unicycle, three blunt machetes and a Westminster City Council bin with which to assemble his podium. 
    He strutted around his make shift stage assembling his props and building his audience with a roguish confidence you only find in the big cities. His dishevelled top hat sat atop his ponytail like it was alive, the way a parrot sits atop a pirates shoulder in the films although it could barely be described as a top hat for how much it looked like a wild beast had hibernated on it. He wore a blazer that was one size too small and fastened up so that one struggling, singular button sat strained atop his protruding gut with wide baggy black trousers and a pair of black shoes that were, of course, too long for his feet. Once he had expertly assembled his crowd he stood atop the city council bin he’d dragged centre stage and began banging the mesh-less racket on the sides like a cave man discovering war drums. 
    “Right then,” he howled from his podium, “it’s….” and as he did so he slowly removed his shabby blazer to reveal the word ‘SHOWTIME’ tattooed across his shoulder blades in huge red and gold lettering that only us, “backstage” at the pitch, had a view of. 
    “…SHOWTIIIIIIIIME!!!” he roared. 
    He went on to hold that crowd in his hand from start to finish from recruiting a young member of the audience to copy his dance moves, to tossing the juggling machetes one by one atop his unicycle like a drunken monkey leaving many a held breath amongst the dithering crowd, to his grand finale - contorting his body in a variety of wild and weird ways before finally finishing the show and squeezing his wobbly flesh through the mesh-less tennis racket. 
    The crowd laughed, cheered, clapped. Us, and the congregation before us, found ourselves in the company of a true rarity: a walking, fleshy embodiment of old Victorian gin ridden gallantry and showbiz flair, the sort of act and man that belonged in the back room delights of a Whitechapel boozer, entertaining the likes of swindlers, labourers and ladies of the night. They’d probably have given him his own road show back then. But here, today, he was exiled to the whispering cobble stones, another memory amongst their damp history, another soul full of the fight against anonymity and obscurity, whose very breath a bold attempt at branding their name into the stones of time.
    “Ladies and gentlemen”, he was out of breath as he climbed back upon his podium, “ladies and gentleman. Have you enjoyed the show!?” There was a huge raw from the crowd. “I certainly hope so! My name is Mad Jack Valentine, ladies and gentlemen, it has been an absolute pleasure to be here for you today. If you enjoyed the show I would ask only one thing. I would ask that you spare a moment to consider the Art that you enjoy and the Art that you’ve experienced here today.” Some people began to snigger in the crowd. “Consider the Artists who brighten up your life! Who make your life so full of wonder and joy! Do you think that those Artists should be fairly compensated!?” 
    “YEAH!!!” the crowd cheered. 
    “Do you think those Artists should be fairly compensated for their work!? 
    “YEEEEAAAAH!!!!” 
    “Good! So do I. What do you think would be justifiable compensation for the Art you enjoy? £20? What about £15? £10? Ladies and gentlemen! You know what I think? I think, at the bare minimum, a pint of beer is fair compensation for the artists who bring you the joy in your life! Ladies and gentlemen the going price of a pint in London today is £5. £5 to buy someone a pint and show them some appreciation for their work. Does that seem fair to you?” 
    “YEAAAAH!!”
    “I said does that seem fair to you!!?” 
    “YEAAAAAAAH!!” 
    “Then, ladies and gentlemen, if you can spare £5 today I would be hugely appreciative of your support and admiration for London street art. If you can’t  afford £5, ladies and gentlemen, whatever you can spare...”
    “He’s losing them”, said an old busker next to me. 
     “...but, if you can’t afford anything, ladies and gentlemen please do come forward, shake my hand and come and say hello, guys. I don’t bite...hard.”
    Laughter again. 
    “Now, ladies and gentlemen, you may now,” he climbed down from the bin and held out his crumpled top hat, “come forward.” 
    The crowd began to part.
    A good portion of them had begun shuffling and departing. Those who did come forward began stuffing money into the hat or shaking hands to which Mad Jack was most grateful. But once the generous few had dispersed I watched as Mad Jack began heading over the dispersing crowds with his hat held out. 
    “Not want to chip in to that show you just spent the last forty minutes watching then, mate, no?” The people awkwardly tried to shuffle away. 
    “He dragged out the money speech” I heard the other buskers begin to say. 
    “No, I’ve told you, he needs to do the juggling as the finale, the body through the racket is not a finale” another exhorted. 
    “Yeah I don’t know why he always finishes with it,” another agreed. 
    “All the circus acts do the juggling,” another said, “who else do you know who can squeeze their body through a fucking tennis racket?” 
    I looked back and Mad Jack was now haranguing the punters in the casino terrace area. I could faintly hear him saying “come on, you fuckers, you were watching too cough it up.” They were laughing but most of them at least gave something. It seemed like they had something to spare, after all. 
     Jack then looked up at the balcony and, still shirtless, barged straight into the casino and appeared up there minutes later arguing with a casino attendee who was hot on his heels. The punters on the balcony, in their garish Ralph Lauren shirts and Couture dresses, laughed awkwardly at this wild man who was proclaiming “come on, you were watching, cough it up you sods!” Some paid him something. 
    I was mesmerised by how brazen he was. 
    Eventually he came back down and returned to the pitch. 
    “That was incredible” I said. He totally ignored me. 
    “Did you fucking see that!?” he roared at the elders. 
    “It’s how it goes, Jack. You know how it can be” replied one of them. 
    “Fucking bullshit, mate. Size of that crowd, should’ve been double what I brought in!” 
    “Never mind you got another one at 8pm” 
    “Yeah and I’ve gotta wait about until then.” 
    “I thought you were great” I said as I chucked five quid in his hat. He looked at it then looked at me, then looked at the fiver again. He took out the note and gave it back to me. 
    “Thanks son, but keep your money.” 
    “Why?” I asked. 
    “Because I wouldn’t put money in your hat. Shouldn’t need to.” 
    He walked away and began clearing the pitch for the next act who had already walked on and begun blaring his intro music. I looked down the avenue and saw the changing of the tides, fresh faces, fresh eyes.
    Fresh wallets. 
    The rain had begun to drizzle again and as it did, I continued to stare down the avenue until my daydreams were broken by a huge red bus that gently breezed through those dreams like the Red Death. But this wasn’t the usual double decker, it was a coach and there was something written on it. 
    ‘We send the EU £350 million a week let’s fund our NHS instead - Vote Leave’. 

Here it is again the sun begins to soar 
Fill your coffee cup sweetened by the dawn
Black as hands that contain the yawns
Hearty as steel used for the workshop walls.
A man does not rise to the status he’s born 
But falls to the sweat on his overalls
Ain’t measured by the volume of his roar
But by the silence that he’s reserved it for, 
Blistered by the hammer and the maul, 
Christened by the waters of rainfall,
Standing for all, short or tall
Kneeling for none unwilling to crawl. 

Martha lent me her second chance 
And I drove it out to where the rough and ready dance,
Out of work mechanics for un-oiled dreamscapes 
Refugees from every dogs day,  good time renegades,
Starting from scratch with a tortured itch
Re-learning to sail rowing an unsoiled ditch,
Raised hell just to find it was nothing and all
Left with the whistle of the Last Chance Roll Call,
Where what could’ve been is what we make of it 
Biting off more than we can chew just for the taste of it.

The changing of the guard shines no light upon
The limestone where the passing of global climes
Has no say, brings no surprise, like that of a criminal mind 
That should rise to position of top rat racing for the prize,
“surely it can’t be?  Same as the old boss?” - only in disguise. 
The ideas chime like broken taps dripping 
In the distant misuse of The Hustler’s precious time
As Slim Jim, at once a scribbler of verse, slave to the rhyme,
Poet’s brigade in his prime, soon hung up his dreams 
Left the scene to build the beams of a respectable future 
By any means. Fell in with The Hustlers, 
The prize fighters training by rhythm of night
Made deals with the Caine Town Rats,
Sheltered from the rain beneath many different hats
To find the blight of good intentions has a might 
That beats the will of all well-meaning men’s insights. 
The changing of the guard shines no light, 
Only whispers in the dark that we are right
To keep our money in our sights and our skins out of the fight. 

Slim Jim swept Dark Annie
 Like the tide,
“Let’s brave the lies
You and I”, he cried, 
“Should we find ourselves
In the killing fields
Where old values go to die
Where old costs are paid
In powder, narcissism and wine, 
Where cold hearts kiss, 
And no broken mirrors shine.
Where we’re work day bound, 
To the dreams that only
Let us down,
With few Errol Flynn
Or Clarke Gable’s meant,
To rise amongst the crowd”. 
“You’re more Brando anyway”,
she frowned,
“For there are no Abel men
In Caine Town.”

The National Mental Health Service 
Is experiencing technical difficulties 
The notion that everything will be all right
Is on another line. 
Your taxes are better spent
Unwasted on these faculties
But don’t worry your position in the queue
Is fifty five million
Nine hundred, seventy nine thousand,
Nine hundred and ninety
Nine. 
While you wait it might be wise to think
About popping into your local public house
Boost the economy with a drink
You’ve floated this long 
Its doubtful you’ll sink
Here’s some Ed Sheeran while you wait, 
We hope it don’t tip you 
Over the brink.