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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Pain in My Heart<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Sarah Barrington, with image above by Steev Burgess<\/em><\/p>\n Before I left for university (For months after, I craved the grease and Louise was good at maths I was not. People could still smoke indoors then, Through the haze, Lou went out with a walrus, Til he beat her.<\/p>\n Then there was Geoff, Most lunchtimes they\u2019d drive us to a pub round the corner, in Aston It was a grotty place to be, The big boss, name of Ashley, too posh for us, Mr Toadish, never spoke to me, And the boys from the factory floor I could not wait to leave. But Geoff made an impact And that day in the pub, chatting, Oh, tis such a tragedy, Geoff tells me then, Gliding round and alone, \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pain in My Heart by Sarah Barrington, with image above by Steev Burgess Before I left for universityMy friend Louisegot work for me, for the summer,At the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":604,"featured_media":13986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
My friend Louise
got work for me, for the summer,
At the recycling centre,
Accounting in the offices, littered with windswept sheets of wasted paper,
Amidst the incessant winking, bleeping, groaning lorries unloading on the weighbridge.
In Portakabins,
In Nechells,
In the shadow of the silvery gasworks,
We ate fried egg sandwiches
everyday at ten a.m.<\/p>\n
drip of yolk when the clock hit ten).<\/p>\n
and all the lads said
she was good for a laugh.<\/p>\n
Too prickly.
I filed papers,
struggled with figures,
supercilious student, observing,
observing: this would not be my life,
for fuck\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n
and everyone did,
all day.<\/p>\n
Opposite me, much older, a lady
called Lucy
who could tuck her tits in her knickers.
Lou swore she was a swinger,
a sexual adventurer.
It seemed unlikely
but Lou believed it.<\/p>\n
double-breasted and bursting
a bully called Carl,
in Sales.
But she loved his fast car,
his \u2018tache
his cruel humour and she stayed fiercely loyal,
Despite my disapproval,<\/p>\n
in the corner,
an actual accountant.
Apparently one of the few who did any work .
He seemed old then
but I can work out his age now.
He was 36.
Boyish yet grizzled. Frazzled.<\/p>\n
and then back
to sway drunkenly
Lurching from desk to photocopy
One sheet at a time, til home-time,
Take stock, watch the clock.<\/p>\n
where the bosses
(all men)
had absolute power:<\/p>\n
but occasionally came to talk figures with Geoff.<\/p>\n
would flash you some hardcore porn,
They\u2019d found secreted in the recycling
by some shamefaced repressed perv\u2019
to gauge your reaction.<\/p>\n
This would not be my fucking life.<\/p>\n
briefly, a connection.
This is about Geoff
in the times before mine,
before synthesisers and modulators,
Times I clung to with devotion:
a sucker for sehnsuct.<\/p>\n
we moved, inevitably
\u2013 or perhaps the jukebox was playing –
to Otis Redding.<\/p>\n
that such a voice, such eyes, such THIGHS
were taken too soon!
we agreed, fervently,
In the way only two pints drunken in quick succession at lunchtime can make you agree.<\/p>\n
And I never forget it,
When he is a mod, sixteen,
in his parka,
zipped up,
hood up,
skating round and around
At the Silver Blades Club,
The ice rink in town,<\/p>\n
Tears streaming, head down
As, over the tannoy,
plays Pain in My Heart for
Otis Redding is dead.<\/p>\n