A GRAM OF CHAOS
The car she sat in like a burdened mule
Glowered at the misrule where the rush
Held up by traffic, fraught with fruity screams
- from which an uncouch lexicon peeped out -
and one car got a small dent on the wing
Doubled the frames of even-bunched cruel yamahas
Reflecting light upon the rabble as
The gutter and the sewer rose to meet it.
From sedan chassis hailed in rich profusion
Loud hails of irony and mordent alas!
Unwisely choked by mixed monoxide car-fumes
Urgent, pounded to lackwind, muddled confused
And drowned by suchlike odours; stirred by the air
They fastened down the windows; which descended,
And fattening in prolonged slothful journies
Flung their smoke into the cafeterias,
Stirring the patter of their coffee selling.
Neon signs would flare and splutter
Burned green and orange, framing the cola scam,
In which red light was shown a ring-pull can.
Below on antique mustangs were displayed
In little rondels on the window screens:
The change of Tax disks, by the barbarous King,
So rudely forced; yet there the pneumatic drill
Filled all the sidewalk with inviolable voice
And still they cried and still the world pursues,
Dig, dig to dirty sewers,
And other withered stumps of time
Were scrawled upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, browbeating, rushing the humans enclosed.
Footpad hustled in the bar,
Under the Spotlight, in Shepard's Bush, her hair
Sprayed out in fiery puce
Grayed at the roots, then would be savaged anew.
"My hair is red to-night. Yes, red. Stain with my
Special tonic. Why do you never eat? Eat!
What are you drinking now? What drinking? What?
Or possibly if you are driving...think!
I think of that lost valley
Where the red men play the spoons.
"What is that noise?
The winded on the floor.
"What is that noise now? What are the dined estuing?
Jogging, again jogging."
Do you go jogging.
Do you see joggers, do you remember collapsing?
I remember
Those are the perils that made his capsize
Are you alive, alive oh? Is there coughing in your breath?
But
OOOO that Marks & Spencerian Bag -
It's so elastic
Of fluorescent plastic
"Where shall I drive now? What shall I drive?
Caught in the rush hour in a jam, baulked in the street
With my dark brown mood, we stall into tomorrow.
Will those lights never change?"
The hot water we're in
And if it raons, a closed car, for sure
Contains within a gram of chaos,
Press licensed cries, and wailing for a knock out
in Rocky IV.
When Lil's license got revoked, I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself
COME IN NUMBER SIX YOUR TIME IS UP
Now when you get it back, try to be a bit smart.
They want to know where you got the money you paid them
To get yourself this M.O.T, they did I was there
You make it worth our while, Lil, you'll get it
They said, I swear we're here to look after you.
Well I'm not, I said, thinking of the poor social workers,
They've been in the forefront four years, seems a shame
But what they won't give out, the Others will, I said
Oh will they she said. You know they will, I said.
Then I'll know who to thank she said and gave me a right hook.
COME IN NUMBER SIX YOUR TIME IS UP
If you don't like it, they'll make you get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose but you can't.
But if you make out, It'llbe through tact or yelling.
You ought to be ashamed it looks so antique.
(It's only a T Registration)
I can't help it, she said, polishing a lost fender,
All the bills I had to pay to patch it up, she said
(She's had five already and all of them Fords)
The mechanic said it would pass all right, but its never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
If you can't leave the car at hme, sometimes, I said.
What do you buy shoes for if you don't go walking?
COME IN NUMBER SIX YOUR TIME IS UP?
Well that Sunday on the way home, it had a hot bommet
and the engine overheated and it stuttered like one shot.
COME IN NUMBER SIX YOUR TIME IS UP?
COME IN NUMBER SIX YOUR TIME IS UP?
Headlight Bill? Fanbelt Lou! Fanbelt Bill?? Fanbelt!
Tut, tut, fanbelt!
Good try ladies, nice try sweet ladies, bad luck,
Your car has failed.
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