notes on status (2007)

Today you toddle off
elaborately inane, to where your profile

fills out like a bin-liner caught by the
wind.

– John Forbes, ‘Colonial Aubade’


ha survive in a corporate office
without actually working (just
live there, haunt the espresso
machine)

see brother, la revolution begins on every page, in
every line

in gel caps /
in the deepest blues

only to find that
nothing beards us like a lack
of ritual responsibilities

a life of not being able to
pop a balloon with a stick of celery

(not the place itself but your slim scared imaginings of)

like spring racing ‘carnival’,
fashions in the field yet
another vocabulary for
status to shake around in...

deep in the bowels of
some corporate tent or other
you realise luxury is irresistible,
has its own set of ‘classique’ emotions

& one day, with a dab of brio and your lucky haircut,
you could have your very own war

(thief!)