Mannix Street Preachers

The Albany, Deptford, London, 25th January 2008

I find myself in an uncaring corner of South London musing over poetry. I'm pretty conflicted with this as a form, I mean how art thou art blah blah blah, dead art form right? Sure, sceptics all around internet land are screaming into their herbal teas "yeah but what about Byron, the first rock star, or Wilfred Owen and his harrowing war stories?" Yeah, yeah, i heard it all before, and flouncing around with baggy shirt sleeves shagging your sister (deranged rock 'n roller I'll admit) or getting your head blown off by the "hun", tragic as it is doesn't make it an artform. I've read Byron, and let's face it he was no Thom Yorke, he didn't twiddle frequencies of overnourished angst within me, or find a pressure valve of release causing me to float backstroke on swampy warm seas of treacle (must have been stoned or drunk when I first heard kid a).

Anyway, Deptford, cold Wednesday night. I'm stood in a spit and sawdust boozer, minus the spit and sawdust. At least the chalky smoky atmosphere is still intact, particularly as I see most of the patrons are eschewing the smoking ban and exhaling happily to the yellowed ceiling. I'm here with an artist friend of mine who is literally coming in his pants as he recounts all the names on the bill - I forget them as soon as I hear them. A pofaced wizard Gandalph wannabe is flouncing around spreading good luck spells and cough germs far into the sweaty pub, he sees me spill my drink and rattles around me offering good karma incantations. I kindly explain to him that I'm making a collection of bad karma and am looking for one final big score. Fortunately before he can speak again we are motioned to our seats by a huge blast of atonal jazz.

The first spoken word act on is my old friend Gandalf, whispering away in a sexless Welsh accent some poem about the drudgery of the workplace. My god this guy is killing me, it reminds me of the time as an overeager 19 year old I found myself joining the socialist workers party. This reject from Arthur Scargill's ball busters conscripted me, painting a picture of fighting and looting, continually smashing his knuckles into his hand for extra emphasis. Yes, thought I, a chance to shine a light into this monochrone world, disrupt the status quo. I didn't know what they were fighting for, but it sure would piss people off. So I went to this first meeting full of bile and piss and redenned forehead, only to be greeted by the sight of this army of fabled change, which consisted of a middle aged woman with the most rotten teeth I have ever beheld (which she insisted on constantly flashing to me), a short-sighted university dropout who believed in female dominance and enjoyed a fine line of cardigans which were apparently knitted with no anatomical knowledge whatsoever by Mrs rotten teeth, Mr smash fist in hand and myself, a 19 year old kid who really only ever wanted to get laid and steal your car.

This Gandalf guy was making me have the same feelings. Nevertheless, dear reader, for you I stayed, rummaging through seaside postcard sauciness, poems about cats and vet bills, the goalkeeper Pat Jennings (cool guy, cool poem) and perhaps the coup de grace, some guy wearing an alien face mask while intoning haikus.

Intermission came and went, as I found myself pissing out the scotch and pear cider chasers I'd found myself dabbling in. Now even I had heard of John Clarke, probably London's central mover and groover within this scene, hell I'm surprised they haven't printed up 'I'm with John Clarke' t-shirts yet, that's how central the guy is. Anyway he took the stage, shaking his long hair, wizened and frozen white with age, but his words spat out like mini dervishes, cascading through the talentless and barren room like a machine gun in the hands of a fire and brimstone piss artist his poems cut in shards. But like a fine bottle of whiskey, it ended too soon, and the man took a bow, walked off the stage, and seemed frail and spent. Later, drinking together, I asked him if this was a dead art form? "Nah" he answered, "words outlive us all. I mean after all, they outlived Byron."

By Charles Malakos