THE REMOVAL

listening to them talking
and putting off what needs doing,
they will raise any issue
so long as it involves:
fucking, drugs or booze,
or their favourite rock star.

they talk the beat attitude
wear the beat jeans
carry the 1960's face of innocence
but it falls flat in this decade
of corporate aggression.

for them
the removal began
at an earlier age,
from a stunted education.

for them
breaking free is not possible,
they remain tied up in tongue and mind

they will conform
they will always
conform.

ON THE BLACKLIST

two years fighting
on and off,

I write uneasy in the break-room,
listening to the idle chat,

the short-term trivial discussions,
20 years' worth of unions on their knees...

2 days ago
my girlfriend, my work colleague

vomited with anxiety
in the staff toilet...

today, I remind myself
of a rhinoceros beetle

dark, hideous,
crawling across a management blacklist

clumsy with ambition,
precious with ideology,

hissing
as those who despise me

walk near.

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