CODA
The pain isn't even there,
friends•
& Is love for you at work
of stagnating & falling dead
coif metals of jottings clang on louse vapour,
& falling dead show how far behind
digits in the pay stub survive
as memos etched & twined
a spine clanks inside the War of Jennifer's ear
is bloodworm glue fallen daylight
& ill again sound as death
expired nozzle to number tight
O rind to go with imperative plight
a restructure broken registrar begins to move
in centimetres divided service user
here lays the secretariat
(insect uniform plucking & tearing)
& burning in & gangways,
front doors, stringent
. c ords softly & firmly spoken,
rapid consultat
ions, telephone c a lls ,
concentration, organisat
ion. Total reaction*
Under total control*
Total absence of the
irrational* Emotional und
e r the unbreakable
control of NEVER, CURSE* •
that Common Market, double-wreck-it over knuckle out
under the whole person at work for insects hurt by
fleeing humans with nothing but sweat in their
hands. blood scaled service user here lays the secretariat
repeat: lays to never
lays on the other
lays a defunct worker nonperforming
my eye hurts, like full of sand. Splinters.
lays entering through this
insects make you so ugly. Another crime
lays again but not around
lays once more but finds
perfect mechanised insects.
in parricided food inside money bags
(I still do not comprehend your apologue)
is really existing satire
or to hear the nearness of muted persons
yours sincerely, a raging quiver asking
what is hopeless work?
is someone who continues to believe in work
usually fantasising about work, giving a lot of energy
to pursuits & to have a deep desire for its partnership
crumbles to a heap
to cover the cost of
a Prescription Prepayment Certificate
to reduce your ongoing prescription costs
to a union of lanyards wrapped knotted
of its own actual antinomies a real living life crannied inside
& you a Workforce Reporting Manager
previously Employee Relations Adviser
previously Recruitment & Operations Adviser,
whilst completing your magister scientiae
in Human Resource Management
worked as a Rewards & Systems Manager
wherein you produced salary models
forecasted & made recommendations
based on organisational performances & external trends
enabled senior management to conduct staff pay reviews
with the provision to implement agreed salary reviews
by instructing Payroll, of this & subsequently by you
a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth
in the continual exercise of spinning straw to gold,
you breed law to hang on to that which they have
in its bones:
Those who will oppose you are the comfortable ones, those with a shallow desire to hang on to that which they have, those who are ready to yield the outer reaches of their territories, spiritual & material, for a quiet life. Such people will not bear examination beneath the torch of a rigorous national debate.
The fundamental mistake is to look to compulsion to do the work of freedom. The State, the engine of compulsion, cannot create what can only be created by individuals acting on one another.
a life concentrically turning
on the spy gash held above
& to build a candidate pipeline previously not existing,
remembering you once whispered into twitching sides that
‘Reporting is easy.
The system is accessible.
Everything is automated.’
sanctions a cut to a hole dead
to £0 a living grating in the eyebrow
awaken us to opting out of
the Working Time Regulations 1998
& read from the book of Winchester aloud
& asked what is a hide?
a type of peasant?
a shelter?
(c) a measurement of land?
or a place you cannot be seen?
as it clanks in a humming scathe
moot the vein & clock with a throat full
of blooded padlocks that is proof enough
it never counts feral under the baton rounded
to a cost pride a large bolus; its texture marbled
taking the charge of a lifetime of disposals,
a contract for services made
shrink-wrapped to a raincurtain of pinnace
chokes the sky & crosses it through
to an uptake floating scale a matured chime
locking day & night out now livid
in cellulose its orbital home
moving stupid liquid forever
in the curing of sleep,
a voice sealed in a ringed outcry
where no jobs run amok over the proud varicose
fat on sun-loungers, to watch the juvenile record lash out
now to watch the choppy sink in badlands
the saturnalia so eat the chicken wings
gilded in a better hour
