[A match-day train ride to Manchester] 

A tremble, 

a quiver,

a lick of disgust.

Hot breath, 

stale sweat. 

Booze. 

Boozed-up and violent. 

Oozed hatred through nicotine pores. 

Sourer and sourer

the abrasive shower

of ignorance and aggression. 

Confession. 

I daren’t speak nor breathe

or look into my peripheries. 

For fear of the growls

that grumble and rumble

and cut and graze

my delicate skin— 

now flushed and red,

seeping sadness and humility. 

I’m open and bleeding. 

Prized open further by

the spit of hot breathe, 

stale sweat

and booze. 

They call and taunt,

lips pulled taught, 

and I’m caught, 

momentarily, in their grimaces.

Pepped up but empty.

Lost souls. 

Lost patience. 

Lost morality. 

Defiled society. 

Confinement in this metal cage

twist and make the anger hotter

and hotter. 

Seeping red and pulsing. 

Ears swelled, eyes welled, 

I sit listening with petrified intent. 

The growls rumble on,

the grumbles abrase and scathe

and I’m bathed

 in a foul eloquence of hooliganism. 

Caged Beasts brazen aggression. 

Swollen mission to pierce and hurt. 

Me.

In the centre, 

surrounded and cornered. 

Each foul stinking mess 

of stale sweat and malice 

is severing more severally my seeping skin; 

red and raw and sore 

from so much maliciousness amidst 

the array of men on the train. 

Them. 

The hooligan.