All the crazies are out today
after a weekend without
medication,
or too much.
The grey air shivers
with every sniff,
stumble or sideways word.

It’s the start of a new week,
you should be doing something
useful, not standing sedately
in a supermarket aisle
trying to find a Regular when
all they have is Economy.
‘No wonder I get so angry,’
says the man in shorts
but no shoes.
Nobody here is feeling
on the
top of the world...
looking
down on creation...
Calling Elvis.
Elvis to the bakery please.

Another planeload of anxiety
slides behind the silos
as we wait for the green light.
A few of us go early,
desperate and uncaring,
trusting our judgement,
their brakes.
On the other side,
a man is being mobbed
by birds, vermin all over ’im.
He’s only there for effect,
a living sculpture
which says it all
in many ways.

Back at my asylum,
Time is a sleight of mind:
a quarter to four is nearly five o’clock.
At McMahon & Tate,
Larry is leaning on Darren
for those new layouts
but, as usual, Endora’s mischief has
thrown another spanner in the woods.
Anybody who can’t believe their eyes
had better give up the booze,
or take a vacation
(trust television to show us the way).

What is making the news today?
Victorious footballers cannot tell
what the future holds,
it’s too early to say,
it hasn’t sunk in yet.
Meanwhile, our boys are forcing
faceless militias to lie down
in the street,
peering at them through
telescopic sights
to get a
better fix.

Right on cue,
the rain arrives
to polite applause.
Now it’s fat lips of ivory garlic and
...the world was a very different place
three million years ago...
Stay with us now.
Don’t go away.