‘The Wheel’

‘. . . when you’re down and out’ fadesAnd the jazzmen make for the bar.Time now for the pie and peas and pasties.

Familiar faces, but strangers at ease withEach other, as the poetry of the musicUnites them, blowing away their lives lived in prose.

Outside the air is cold and the pavementsFull of slush, a danger to the folk stumblingFrom the pub when they leave full of ale.

But the top floor of The Wheel is a cave,Hot and safe for the ageing jazz fansKilling the Blues holding back the cold.

Hear time is embarrassed and leaves the roomLike a drunken con-man caught peddlingHis wares and his lies.

The beer, the music, fellowship and the chatFeed the soul as the present and the pastEmbrace on the wheel of life.