new fascism and the self important
after Will Harris
the woman behind the bar
wears a miniature sword as a hairpin.
I order drinks and compliment her on it;
‘I like your hairpin’ I tell her, ‘I like that it’s a sword’
(hairpin as shiv; gothic, romantic, gallant, merky)
she compliments my coat
It has a logo with a monkey on it,
the symbol of an American work-wear brand
called Ben Davis (they have the strapline; ‘plenty tough’)
I finish one drink and order another.
I walk home from Liverpool Street
eating a bucket of KFC
in a way nobody should have to witness.
I have two large glasses of port on arrival because
it’s Christmas (and hiding yourself from yourself
via the medium of drink is legit then).
That scene with the Alvis
in ‘Tinker-Tailor…’ had to be from memory
Okay. I am interested in what is happening to me.
I can’t tell you what it is yet.
Awake at five with cold-beer urges,
urges for cigarettes. Anything
but being still. Fantasy. Distraction. Fantasy.
I will be sick next week. It’s light now
a plane against the sky in the clear morning.
The sky so blue it seems painted by a child,
the plane held on a stick
by the same child saying; ‘Look! Look,
this is how the world works.’ Simple
and pretty and not at all believable
