So terribly terribly Surrey

A probably awfully unfair look at yuppie Home Counties life, somewhat inspired by Luke Wright's take on Essex... and there's an audio recording here. Enjoy!

Gestures

This is the Birkenstockbroker belt,
All yummy mums and Womad-dads,
Mwah-mwah-dahling,
Wan-but-affluent,
Each pair with 2.4 ill-behaved black labs
And matching kids in ‘Chez Ami’,
Orlando, Portia or whatever
Named picked by putting pins in Shakespeare or The Iliad,
Parents clothed in Chiswick High Street harmony,
Oh-so-Surrey country tones
Forming Barbour-coat quartets,
Hunter-booted,
Rubber-suited (oh no, sorry,
that’s the couple down the road
who host those funny parties),
Met through Soulmates in the Grauniad,
Still odd sniffs of coke at media soirées,
Metrochemical, petrosexual,
Illicit upright flings,
Tell-tale smudges on Range-Rover wings
Wiped off with Hermès headscarves –
It’s dog-eat-dog in dogging-land –
Strict Trustafarians smoking feng shui reefer,
Designer drugs by FARC, or was it Shining Path?
Weekend revolutionaries,
Weekday worriers wearing
Nothing more radical than a pink Paul Smith shirt
And a tie that’s slightly humorous-yet-practical –
Head down, suit up and suck back the gumption,
Save up for a yurt at Bestival
‘Cos you know a few days of buying Fairtrade
And circle-jerking borrowed djembes
Makes up for 51 weeks
Of strip-mining capital consumption.

Out of the Ejector Seat

Words written after a day of hot sun and inspiration at the Ejector Seat Festival...

Penstroke

The Pen beats down,
Roasts my head with inky heat,
Nothing blocks the ABC, the UV to XYZ-rays,
No Ambre Voltaire,
No slipped-on shirt nor slapped-on hat,
No slopped-on factor-many –
The Pen pierces the shady canopy of trees,
Tans the page,
The vellum of my skin –
Tans, turns, tans, turns,
Makes more melanin,
Does my melon in,
Burns,
Leathers me with verbs,
Words inhaled like pollen or hot smoke,
Sneezed-coughed-spat back out in order,
Arranged as palisades,
But the Pen is unrelenting,
May bring into being
Jungles or deserts,
Savannahs or bleached reefs –
It does not care what
As long as it is not
Ignored.