who are they who go to gawp?
catalogue bought
suit, tie, white shirt
wide open mouth
corporated to no values
in this virtual small town
side-of-mouth
pub corner, doorstep
fingerpointing conformity
knowing but not knowledgeable
who’s what to who
he-said-she-said concerns
whispers manipulating one
against another, valueless, amoral
all depending only on
who is doing the approving
who the disapproving
who owns what
has got what
badges and poppies
boast their belonging
See! A death
Quick! A bouquet
The Shopping Class
[In the capitalist version of feminism – equality of purchasing
reliant on the exploitation of poor people elsewhere – this is
a therapeutic rant penned solely to counter the rise of heterophobia/
misandry in some supposedly post-feminist tracts.]
Left eye-to-brain migraine sees
made-thin women all of a plastic muchness,
smooth faces above wrinkled necks,
as immaculately presented as
philanderers’ wives; sees some
forty-plus picking-over-women become
dissatisfied lumps with legs; sees
whole lives overlaid with repetition, their
as their chosen carpets are vacuumed; sees
surly schoolgirls serving Saturdays
in the bakers, marketed breasts wrapped
like bolsters to their chests; sees
women clothed fashionably uniform,
naked various; sees
them all leave damp towels
in heaps outside bathroom doors…
Left eye-to-brain migraine sees
made-thin women all of a plastic muchness,
smooth faces above wrinkled necks,
as immaculately presented as
philanderers’ wives; sees some
forty-plus picking-over-women become
dissatisfied lumps with legs; sees
whole lives overlaid with repetition, their
mowing of close-cropped lawns as regularly
as their chosen carpets are vacuumed; sees
surly schoolgirls serving Saturdays
in the bakers, marketed breasts wrapped
like bolsters to their chests; sees
women clothed fashionably uniform,
naked various; sees
them all leave damp towels
in heaps outside bathroom doors…