cul-de-sac

 

 

 

A poem about post-Brexit Britain
seen through the prism
of smalltown smallminded shenanigans

 

 

I

 

Awakened from uneasy slumber

by an aubade of bells and angle grinder.

 

The starlings are massing.

Quorn cylinders quietly sizzling.

 

What a gay day for supping Earl Grey

through the teahole at the front of my face

while my wife stuffs yet more executive briefs

into my executive briefcase.

 

 

II

 

The Binman Cometh...

 

What kind of place is this

that we've come to call our home,

where the neighbourhood knobhead

uses wheelie bins as traffic cones?

 

He spends his days and nights

watching like a hawk.

He's a man who likes talking

to a man who likes to talk.

 

Take my advice and keep your distance!

Don't allow yourself to get too close.

After dark he likes to strut around

in long blonde wig and pantyhose.

 

 

III

 

Our community spirit is running low

in a town grown anxious and uncertain.

The time has come to twitch your last twitch.

Take one final call at your net curtain.

 

No sounds abound

when the day is doggone done

apart from muffled moans

from the neighbour's dungeon.

 

The things you find at the bottom of the bag!

 

There's nothing cul

about this cul-de-sac.

 

B.R. 14/07/2016

 

 

Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon (1941). "I'll tell you right out. I am a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."