Saturday Job

I feel like I'm not going to get a fair hearing here so let's
start with my proletarian credentials: yeah boy
I cleaned toilets

<<silence>>

         <<meatballs>>

                  <<<farming equipment>>>

Can hardly remember what else I used to do, so many years on
scrub the freezer full of fish and burgers
clean that outside lav which was only for emergency use

Trim the edges and
make yourself look useful
a valuable life skill

One day Geoff drove us to the Rugby Club
there was a function, a do, I don't know
he played Deep Purple on his car stereo
we unpacked crates and he gave me one ha ha
I mean we shared a beer that's all but it seemed like a
big deal, I felt like a grown-up fuck you

And one day his daughter poked her head out of the upstairs back room
and yelled my name
- Your sister's on the telly! I was like
1. how do you know who I am
2. how do you know my sister, and
3. what show is she on (ans. Multi-Coloured Swap Shop)

Next week the new girl on the burgers was the same Jenny
who I'd been egged on by
Richie Sayers the church goblin
to chat up at the pool table
a year earlier but I was too timid

Skirted around her, made some
amusing slash fatuous comments
tried a trick shot fucked a trick shot and that was that

Richie with his wet cheeks was all like: You're made for each other
but it was the Most Awkward at the youth club
and now all of a sudden she's four inches taller
and giggling with the other front of service kids
one of whom you like but you tell yourself

She's too tall and too toothy, yes too toothy -
which now sounds like - never mind

And in sick mind you still remember
the elusive yellow haired sweetheart
Debbie who came out back now and then
if not this week then not this week but whenever if ever for a smoke
oh my heart I'll still be here
we shared a puff and didn't have much to say
I was in a trance like we could have spent pleasant decades
not saying much to each other
surveying the western scene, I mean
you know I've got nothing much to say at the best of times

Yes, believe it or not
and I really can believe it, I'm a
lousy conversationalist

Yes, believe it or not
I was perfectly content standing close to her
yellow hair and brown legs
just puffing away and humming
Led Zeppling songs in my peabrained noggin

Otherwise I was out back straining to hear the front of shop
chart hits Saturday morning radio playing
Human League Ultravox Adam and the Ants

I had a broom a rake a scrapy device for the frost and
I was free to make up my little rhymes
read my penpal letters packed in a Beano's plastic bag

I had my underground private shit going on
with correspondents far and wide
        Marion from Motherwell
        Pob from Nottingham
        Orla from Sunderland
        Georgina from Chelmsford
my regional network of peculiars

I see: Even then you were happier
maintaining relations at a distance

Me: Are you saying I am the village idiot 

<<gurning>>

         <<pitchforks>>

                  <<<lambing season>>>