from the hard shoulder
to the inside lane.
shrugging off juggernauts
and hondas as that song was
chug-chug-chugging through her brain.
(struggling to remember her own name).
hence,
we christened her
charlotteorsarahjane,
cloned from the spit and snot
of fifties harlots,
personality split.
she spent ten,
long
years on the shelf
and now
she's here.
doing a pretty impressive
impression of herself.
I always knew she'd graduate early
from our underground facility
the september air turns her breath
into sticky clouds of WD-40.
she tosses her wire for hair,
grits her needles for teeth,
rolls her marbles for eyes.
as she vainly struggles,
to remember her next lines.
what a girl.
she infuses some glamour and glitz
into the musings of old men
who smirk as their dirty little prayers
addressed to themselves and their heirs
erupt from her rubb'ry lips.
in the basement
uncanny reserves rehearse the same six songs.
upstairs
they drink and discuss the mortality rates of platinum blondes.
and how most soft drinks never seem to hit the spot.
clifford frigs himself as pigeons slide into listed buildings
as he fingers the life support machine
of a chav queen, chav christ, ritual sacrifice.
rosy-cheeked and dewey-eyed.
weeping about the witch waiting at the top of her drive.
whom no-one else seems to see.
cliff has her on speed dial number five.
on a chequerboard in reverse order
i read allow the sources of my boredom.
morons on forums worldwide have simultaneously decided
there is no more art or fashion, only
records that whisper 'hooray for satan'
if you spin em arse-backwards.
a fresh assignment lands on his desk,
as he privately expresses regret
at never having seen any eye whites
only broken bodies after the fact.
likens it to seeing war stuttering
through a phone camera lens.
check out the blitzkrieg in ten million pixels.
'oh the humanity' on the digital zoom.
(and when he quits) he returns
to walk our streets with all the style
of benefit cheats and tax exiles.
mumbling,
she doesn't exist if no-one's taking pictures.
if she isn't performing its as though she was never born.
i'm just writing you this quick note to say:
happy happy handlers day.
