A Quarter to 7

It’s a quarter to 7 and the draught runs cold,

I store my day on legal sheets,

Bide my time and count the words,

And count them with no small measure of contempt,

For they are not life and I am not dead,

Though minutes pass me by without a hitch

When daylight slithers under doors and onto wicks,

I store away my legal sheets,

And walk out the café between corner streets,

To dirty my lungs with city air,

And in a short while sit with a cheap Port

In a seedy bar known as Last Resort.

#poetry