The Memoirs of John “Stiffpocket” Keats

11th July

Yo diary,

The name is Keats. You call me by no other name. Tis’ the name of my dad, my dad’s dad and all the other dads down the line, y’know? Tis’ that one name that I go by. You call me Keats or I sock you. Right there. In the kisser. Hah.

‘Kay. Now let’s get down to business. I hang around at the White Daisy pub with my mates. We call ourselves the Big Six. We’re the maddest badasses in downtown London.
You gotta meet Percy man. Percy Shelley. He’s the man! He’s a bit of an idealist he says. Bullshit. He’s just Shelley to us. Ditched his wife because his ass was lonely he says. Can’t get no rear action from a lady. Barges into the pub he does. Joins the Big One, that’d be me, and we become the Big Two. Damn right.

Then came that Coleridge fellow. Smoked up a joint, got us a discount on the drinks after smacking up the bartender. He’s alright. Real fine fella. So we says to him, hehe, we says to him; “Hey, Coleridge. We got this gang thing going!” we says.
He’s all like “Hawhaw, Coleridge need no gang man!”
Shelley socks the guy and he gives in. We become this Big Three. We kicked ass man. Shelley, Coleridge and myself. We sympathise with the poor. We find God in nature. God is right there in every flower and tree dude. God created all the animals! Rabbits! Cows! He gave us good meat to eat! I mean, praise to the lord man! Protein!

So we’re like, sitting there like we do every day. Us, the Big Three. Real big. Then came Wordsworth. He was pimpin’ man. Wordsworth and Coleridge knew each other from way back man, way back. So Wordsworth gives Coleridge his number and we realises that we be the Big Four now; damn. Four of us!

You’d think that’d be the end of it huh? Hah! Byron and Blake, them two old ones. They come and we make friends too. Byron, the geezer. Blake, the gambler. Coleridge, the multipurpose improviser. Shelly, the lady’s man. Then there’s me, the kid. The glue that holds the Big Six together.
We are the Big Six dude. Don’t fuck with romanticism.