For £5.45 An Hour
Just a fucking cockroach of a woman
waving a pack of mince at me
wailing ‘Get us another one,
this one’s outer date!’
so I go the other end of the shop,
get one and take it to her,
she screeches ‘Argh, this one’s only
til the tenf a Feb-roo-airy,
aven’t yer got anythin a bit later??’
so off I go again,
get another one,
come back again,
she looks and says ‘This one’ll do,’
and marches out with her
prickly-faced cockroach husband,
the bottom of their trackie pants
dragging, brown and shaggy,
leaving a piss smell
still in my nose
then the security bloke comes
charging at me,
‘They didn’t pay fer tha mince!’
he rattles my blue blue collar
‘THEY DIDN’T PAY!’
and legs it out after them,
cutting the wall of piss smell
in two,
like the jaws
of a crummy painting of hell
they creak
as they close on me.
* Tanner
says… “Congealed Anfield, 84 … currently festering within the
shadows of society, taking verbal photos of the subsequent horror … i
am always always watching you …” Tanner's new chapbook Alright, Squire? is out now from Last Chance Before Bath-time Publications.
