No more

No more can I faithfully transcribe the voices of the pub — I cannot bring to the written word the laughter and the humour and the lap and the dance of people’s voices and the ebb and the flow of the currents of debate and relay the way in which people relate and create late into the night. No more can I faithfully transcribe the voices of the pub — the peal of words chiming away like the call of the church come the morning after, the wink and the nod of lovers, lowing and throwing shapes in the half light in the corner, the Spandau-like burst of words cutting through the air and the sudden sharp gleam of light from a glass of golden beer that jets through the murk in which I find myself late at night in the gloom of Leuven. No more can I faithfully transcribe the moods of the pub — the glance shared, a glare or a snare, a head on a shoulder, a yawn or a clown, a bore or maybe, just maybe, the core of conversation in which we find either poetry or a dysentery of words. No more can I faithfully transcribe the voices of the pub.