Read a poem by another poet written
on the same day:

Numbers increasing every day
every year
When the work finally dries
I decide to go to my 'boss'
whoever he or she more probably
may be in the background

There is something fishy
about the whole set-up
I can't quite put my finger ...
she is not there
but he is
overseeing the game
in his dreadlocks
not a second to spare
in factory office premises
just off the Great North Road
A1000
round the back of Greenhill Parade
near the Odeon
where the Lindseys used to live

I tell him my grievance
nitty-gritty qs being:
What's happened to the work?
Is there any more coming
or not?
I'm willing
so why aren't they?

But Mr Big Brother
don't give no straight answers
he just keeps on moving
from table to table
job to job
worker to worker
till I follow him through
to the back of the shop
and see a load of imported slaves
working at machines
Now I know his game
as well as I'd suspected

Another guy comes in
who could be my double:
rimless specs, unshaven for days,
evidently bringing in his work
after tiring nights' slog
He looks at me
like a rival
not a smile on his face

Mr Slippery Sly
won't be committed
though the undertone
of the confrontation
is 'I won't say
You're on the list
Don't call us
Wait and see!'
Which is no good to me

So I write my details
and leave in dismay
life just keeps getting harder
And outside new life's been born
My friend the guitarist
holds high his homunculus
to my surprise
stands on a wall
between buildings
in the High Street
as the flood waters rush
from the car park
to cover the road
where we all used to live
Tight in his new father's arms
homunculus shrieks in tiny delight
already the first clever questions
forming on his lips
already the father's
first clever answers returned
about the nature of floods

But as the alarm goes off
and I wake to the same room
in bright electric light
I know it's too late

East Finchley