The Ancient Skate Punk.

The young lounge the hours on the benches of the dead: their carefully careless hair skew-wiffs caps. Scratched and battered skateboards slung at their outstretched sneakers. Energy drinks clutched in one hand, handset in the other. Sickly, sticky-blue smiles on insect faces.

You rarely see anyone riding a board these days. The older guys, sure. But for the young a skateboard is an accessory.
“They always look so exhausted,” says John.
“That’ll be the energy drinks.”

Every so often, they drag themselves up from their arse, pull up jeans, kick ride over (artful & studied: wanton nihilism), stamp tail, snatch upend and walk, deck underarmed, to the next bench.

*

A board is rattling down Silver Street. It draws closer. There is nothing else. The windows are open and the heat of the day escapes the room and clashes with the cooling sea breeze that has blown in. The moon is a tooth.

He carries no weight.

No future.
No past.
NOW.
Nothing exists.
No one is real.

Approaches, thunders beneath my windows.

The rider leans back into the board, pushing his knees out to the right, slides into Coombe Street. His shadow sweeps up the side of the brickwork opposite.

Looms, shrinks: the ancient skate punk is gone.