Greatest Hits: The Cure

I’m listening to The Cure again,

remembering the goth-dark days

under thunder, lightning, rain

I struggled through in Belfast, pain

penetrating as the death rays

in some B-movie from the 50s,

all Tesla voltage, Zap! effects

vapourising happiness,

as seasons spun like old LPs

into a blurring, leaf-blown vortex

of dingy back streets, bedsits, bus stops,

nights that opened up like graves,

mornings-after of fire-escapes

from misery in alcopops

that sucked me into cobwebbed caves

of deeper loneliness and grief

until I thought I’d never see

the sun again, or find relief

on island beach or barrier reef

from my wine-dark odyssey

among the monsters and magicians,

sorceresses, succubae

that lurked behind my faded curtains

like drug-induced hallucinations

coming out like mice to play

every time my back was turned,

turning everything upside down

inside my house, my head, my mourned-

for life without her yearned-

for face, our long-forsaken

days and nights together. Now,

all I had was Robert Smith

and his dark music full of sorrow:

the love cats, Fridays, forests, Wow!

the lullabies and pictures with

spiders in them, all those songs

I listened to at all hours, high

on life, their intros three hours long,

righting all my broken wrongs,

reminding me that boys don’t cry.

About the title: The title of an album by the English band, ‘The Cure’.