Tag: friendship

Dan (for Daniel Marchbank)

Ben PrestonLeave a comment 
Dan
(for Daniel Marchbank)

You said you liked watching the rain 
running down your window. 
You can’t see why people complain. 
The movies flickered on your screen 
 
in cinematic dreams. You knew all the directors, 
like you knew all the bands. Oasis 
to the Chilli Peppers to the Wu-Tang Clan. 
I used to come round to drink cups of decaf. 
 
We swapped cigarettes, shrugged off regrets, 
had a laugh. We talked about the days 
when you partied in a haze. Clubbed it up 
‘til you went off the rails. The lows and the highs. 
 
The good times and the fails. 
You had a warm heart but you played it cool. 
You had a smile for your friends, no time for fools. 
Ray-Bans hid the sadness in your eyes 
 
the heavy melancholy, the turmoil in your life. 
I wish I could come around and see you now. 
Under electric light, the clouds unloading down. 
Watch the rain from the panes of Somerton House. 
 
That sad morning it all got too much. 
I miss big Dan with his human touch. 
With his reason and his rhymes and the love inside. 
You’d still be here if you didn’t take that dive. 
 
I recall that song you put on, Bat for Lashes: 
“Daniel, when I first saw you, 
I knew that you had a flame in heart” 
At your church service friends and neighbours 
 
lit candles for you. For the memories of Dan 
and the light that flickered in his heart.

Fat Bum Song (for Dylan Grundy)

Ben PrestonLeave a comment 
Fat Bum Song
(for Dylan Grundy) 

He’s always on the lookout for those 
fat bum chicks. 

He reckons Eve had a fat bum, 
Eve who was tempted by the serpent. 

Her fat-bummed daughters 
swarm the streets of London in the summertime. 

There’s so many they should be given away free, 
a fat bum for you, a fat bum for me. 

He wants to get a T-shirt saying 
“I’m the monk who likes fat bums.” 

Although he isn’t actually a monk, 
just a Christian who studies the teachings of The Buddha. 

He looks like a cheeky little Buddha sitting there. 
A cheeky little Buddha smoking a Marlboro Red. 

A Saint Jude pendant 
hanging round his neck.

Who’s Afraid of Alice Woolf?

Ben PrestonLeave a comment 
A few years ago I was at a recovery unit for people with mental health problems. At a creative writing group we were asked to write about a friend. How we met and our relationship with them. This was my contribution:

One of my closest friends is Alice. We met about ten years ago in the Costa café at Mornington Crescent. I'd been on a ward at St Pancras Hospital for nearly a year and was being treated with huge doses of anti-psychotic medication. My self-esteem was barely existent and I felt misunderstood by everyone. Alice was a stylish young woman with a pair of designer sunglasses and a chipper middle class voice. We were both regulars in the café and I initially felt too frightened to talk to her. 

A decade later we are firm friends. I send Alice the poems I write and we speak on the phone regularly. Alice is a clever woman and a well-read woman from a literary family. She is the closest female friend I've ever had and she knows things about me that I've never told anyone else. I trust her judgement about the things I tell her and she knows all about my involvement with mental health services. I know she's in my corner.