NOTHING BETTER
There’s nothing better
than sitting at a glass table,
a vase of fresh flowers,
chrysanths, pansies, I suppose…
banging out a derisory poem about
my landlady who can’t put down her phone,
scrolling with her thumb –
she’s raised my rent for Botox treatment,
Facebook friends, watching Netflix,
French, romantic, merci, pouring wine…
Elizabeth Taylor,
I’m getting drunk after work,
red Johnny Walker, nothing better, merci…
Excuse me…
I’ve dropped the Tandoori peanuts –
Pharaoh Sanders on the stereo,
hateful grudge matches at work I’d rather
not go into,
popularity contests I’m never likely to win,
a lazy, bored, belligerent worker,
I’ve seen them handing round charity buckets
of self-pity…
While my landlady is electric, sexy,
curled on a new sofa of roses –
she’s missing her young Romanian boyfriend
who’s homeless,
I passed him in the subway back, poor boy…
a Romanian ex-car washer who drinks Red Bull,
bad cramps in her stomach, she says –
he plays the wild gold casino,
her stomach is sore with slot machines –
he follows her around like a shadow
because he’s got nothing better to do –
nothing better.
Simon Robson
Bindweed Magazine 