For Amy

Last weekend I dove into Camden Town to get a bit of the Amy Winehouse feel before going to see the film about her life.

But like the film, I kept it a bit boring. I didn’t use drugs, did sniff weed on the street and drank a Camden’s Hell and Guinness. But that was it, I had to be sober before going to Leicester Square. That while I was sitting at the bar in The Hawley Arms, the pub Amy frequently visited. I didn’t take her favorite drink, which consists of vodka, banana liqueur, Southern Comfort and Baileys. You can’t make me happy with those sweet drinks. Unfortunately, the film about her life was also bittersweet, aside from the good effort of the actors and the singing of lead actress Marisa Abela; which was quite impressive. This whole immersive experience led me to this try-out poem:

where Amy once sat
drinking down,

and now

XL-t-shirts fall down
like a nightdress to sleep in a myth
where demons went

fighting with a singing voice
that touched heaven and hell
as she fell,

in love

with headache liquids
and golden-brown brain fog
with a heart-breaking man

and toxic stories of paparazzi
who tried to destroy this
hard-boiled goddess,

luckily not her voice
her sound will stay
even when I’ll go back to hell

to find this Eurydice
– in search of my own –
at Camden Town

–
(Where waitresses hug each other
 and that lonely writer smiles
 behind his Guinness for a few sips
 at this district where tourists
 linger and linger and linger on)