Monday 9 May 2011

Workers of the World... Fragment...

The harsh alarm beep

destroys dreams,

we force eyes open

splitting crust at the seams.

Rusty, we stand – shaken, brave,

weak, scared,

our subconscious scratching at the stitches

so carefully woven

over a thousand past lifetimes.


We bury pull sickie reflexes

and sprint headlong into

the ubiquitous every day raid,

where time thieves grab

every second they can.

Where we scurry escape to

the solace of toilet cubicles

to lay cables

that electrify fantasies of

wielding cricket bats

contacting brutal with windows,

computer screens

and co-worker's faces,

and sparing, saving the angel colleague

we pierced so many

silent fluttering glances with

and driving off into our

gloriously unknowable futures,

like a Bruce Springsteen song

animated with

pulsing flesh and dignity.


But the flush destroys these meanderings,

and heads hung low in dread

we step into the bullet-riddled warzone

grumbling in marooned harmony:


I'm only working here

because I need the fucking money”


Let's close our eyes.

We're fifteen.

Precocious sponges absorbing

all immediacy,

our backbones priming

for invisible horizons,

sizing up our forthcoming days

forcing the future to adapt to our prophecies.


But somewhere in the shifting sands

our spines dissolved,

our central security systems collapsed

and the tentacles took over,

camouflaged by aspirational posterlife dreams,

bringing bacon back,

smart/cas dress codes,

20% staff discounts

and pat mottos such as:

well, I don't take my work home with me” .


The tentacles reached into our craniums

and began to suck out extraneous hopes,

dulling our irises with subjugation

until nothing but repressed sweaty tears

and a fear of rent arrears remained.


Let's open our eyes.

We're in, as Wayne Campbell would say, 'the now'.

We pointlessly flush the toilet,

and lurch back to the shop floor

like zombies on death row.


Our area manager

(a grotesquely fat, burnt marshmallow

of a man named Ivor Pie)

caresses and tickles the oily, purple tentacles

and hisses sweet nothings

into the air-holes.

The tentacles grin, hardening and pulsating,

and suck fierce at our brains in gratitude.


Ivor rubs a greasy, gleeful hand

over his folded and refolded stomach

and shoots us eyes full of silent weapons.

We robotically take off our T-shirts

and bend over,

allowing Ivor to snort a huge road

of three parts baking soda

one part Peruvian cocaine

off our blistered, breaking backs.

The powder fireworks Ivor's temper,

and he ferociously kicks us into a pile of blank anonymous products.

CLEAN THAT UP YOU WORKSHY CUNT!”

he screams.

AND IF I HEAR OF ANY COMPLAINING OF 'ABUSE OF STAFF'

YOU'LL FEEL MY FUCKSTICK INFUSED WRATH!

FUCK THE LOT OF YOU, I'M OFF TO GREGGS”


Ivor makes his wobby exit.


We stand, shaken, brave

weak, scared

and face the coagulating, whinging hoards of public,

who moan about antiquated midcore pornography

and demand refunds on lottery tickets

because they didn't win.


The whinges fuse with the dull pounding

in the back of our brains

which punch out

a shriek of useless marooned harmony:


I'm only working here

because I need the fucking money”.


Ivor Pie now reeks of pastry

and the death of souls

as he disappears amongst

the Friday night faceless cock rummaging

masses who infest this dingy hovel.

All the men become a creepy, bulging mass

of silent leering and crass cheering

as our tits and arse dance

dispassionately on the stage,

ageless stiletto gyrations on automatic

stiffening twitching pricks.

Banknotes float on the smoke

of rusted power-driven lust

and become fuse perfectly with our G-strings.


The music (some shitty house number)

numbs almost all other sound

to us: the dancers of the neon skin rhythms.

Sometimes we enjoy our job,

sometimes we don't,

and it's unfortunate that Stan,

an estate agent from Hackney,

head thick with cheap champagne

and three parts baking soda,

makes a grope for us

at a moment when, it must be said,

we're not enjoying our job.

As we feels his rankling fingers grasp our ankles

we turn and fix him.

He freeze frames under our glare,

his face everything we fear and hate:

another cunt filled with venal venom

and a twisted sense of entitlement

too much money

and too little respect

pumping through his veins.


Every rubbed raw memory

rushes up inside us

like we've just double dropped

and our senses pop,

exploding,

splitting,

ripping into raging, burning fragments

and everything blanks

and suddenly we're rebel Atlas'

kicking away foundations of heaven and Earth

and letting them crumble into space

and our full forced arm shoots out

and drives a stilhetto heels

deep into his eyeball,

harder and thirstier with every shove,

muscle gives way to more muscle

as his addled brain is punctured

and Stan's soundtrack

to the final shutdown

is our gored screaming

reverberating in marooned harmony:


I'm only working here

because I need the fucking money”.


It's why we're drinking away sores

and rioting in hammered high street small scale wars,

all for the elemental relief of the beer, the sweat

and sticky floor,

soaking our psychosis,

then wringing it dry

to destroy

just for a moment -

the flickers of the tie noose

and gallows suit...


The harsh alarm beep

destroys our dreams,

we force our eyes open

splitting crust at the seams.

Rusty we stand – shaken, brave,

weak, scared,

and stagger down to

the jam-packed underground

which swells with sweaty, rage-prickled skin

and bulges with comedown weekend sins.

We're a thousand Orpheuses

hopelessly marching into the underworld

to reclaim damned damsels.

We hold up candles,

we squint eyes,

but find no psychopomps,

just the diminuendo throb

of our former consciousness

as we catch flickering

scrunched up faces against plastic windows

rattle past, and darkly vanish.


We're banished to drag out battle-worn shields

to block out the pulsing pain that reels behind

and belies blank, bloodshot, coffee-slapped eyes.


Eyes that, occasionally,

glance up to try and find a sky

and silently scream

in marooned harmony:


I'm only working here

because I need the fucking money”.