An Ordinary Evening in Newtown

Laurie Duggan

1

Camperdown’s for dogs,

Friday evening in the park off Church Street

a barefoot man

carries a plank:

it’s like

La Grande Jatte

for Airedales

under the flight path

2

a square-faced guy

underpants protruding from his jeans

in the smoky atmosphere of the Court House

the word HOT, above the wood roof of the outside bar

(neon in daylight)

‘are you fuckin married or what!?’

3

in the Carlisle Castle ‘Crimson & Clover’,

the forty-somethings

(Church T-shirt,

dingo before pyramid)

vivid pink drinks,

a faint vomit smell from the kitchen (cheese?)

and now, the meat raffle

‘looks nice, but I’ve nowhere to cook it’