To work in a hotel,
Serving servings of
This and that all day long
And most of the night,
Seeing everything everyone
Eats and excretes and uses
And abuses and all the little
Bits that end up in the bin,
Hearing all the same old
Complaints and compliments
Pasted to the same old breaches
And reaches of etiquette,
Smelling the duty-free bargains
Fused with burnt navels
Every evening, smothered
In After-Sun, day in, day out.
What is there to fill this grey day?
Is there someone for whom
It is not grey, is there someone
Who switches on the lights with
Every blink? Is there a place
In this grey city where life flows
Strong and people are enjoying
Their work and loving themselves
And seeing light in every eye even
Though the sun’s switched off?
Work to produce to
Make the day into
Something full of
Activity to replace
The necessity it used to bring,
When cold was a thing to be
Feared and hunger
Was a real beast
Lurking in the thicket
Keeping sucklings fed.
Work to produce to
Make life out of business
And stuff out of wire to
Whirr full the cables that
Keep operating while the
Forests host hackers and
Frozen screens glacier
Crash faster than we can
Gloss over snaps with cyber
Ice cream to fill the cracks
Where Earth used to be .
Taken round a
Cyber cell large
Enough to house
A hundred people,
The office. Hell? No,
Nice people, coffee machine,
No pressure, just
Sit and tinker, tinker,
Away and watch
Life linger, there
In a new tab.
[Written 14th MAy 2009]
Down hill, Life
Is easy like
Punch and the Sun,
Today, on the river,
Red and round
And full of warm
Deep ochre,
Along the river
It ran thick
And cooled quickly
Into twilight we could walk on,
Dry and clean, through
The drum-song of buskers
And the smoke of drinkers,
After work.
Who walked? I and
Passers by, passing by
The river, passing us.
Being Every Day 