© Ryan McGoverne
The Victoria Bar
Victor, when he's not in church,
hangs out in the bar and thinks
about the church, the long aisle
they'll pirouette down – Victor
and Victoria, king and queen
of Christmas Carol Principles –
to that same drum and bass
track rumbling now through
the PA like a pneumatic drill
through single glazing – what
Victor thinks of as traffic cone
surround sound – the Swedish
barmaid's unpronounceable
vowels morphing into vows,
rings, babies, baptisms, death
or divorce – whatever floats
first through the cloudy lager
to crown his glass – and Victor
praises God for drunkenness
and frenzied Pentecostal zeal,
slides his two-dimensional beer
body and brain underneath
a table – in communion with
the bride who's calling time
on thought and keeps calling
and keeps calling –
Rob A. Mackenzie is a Glaswegian poet, editor, reviewer and occasional translator. He lives in Leith. His poetry collections are The Opposite of Cabbage (2009), The Good News (2013) and The Book of Revelation (2020), all published by Salt. He runs the literary publisher Blue Diode Press.