Commuter Mummer

(A mummer is an actor in
a folk-ritual. O.E.D.)

here we are
mummers on the tube
enacting our corporate ritual
in the bowels of the city
and all in order to appease
THE MONEY GOD!
the Baal index!
that great cash cow
in the sky
hovering over our heads
and dominating us all
with her cruel and inhuman logic
the must-have
sine qua non
of income
‘moan’ ee
that stuff that oils of the wheels
of satan’s big machine
and keeps it all
turning
turning
round and round
like the cogs in Poirot’s brain
until we stop
dead
and scream
“I see it all now. Yea!
For I am bound
Upon a wheel of cash
That mine own tears do scald
Like golden ingots
Upon mine cheek. Alas!”
yes. alas for us.
poor mummers on the tube
struggling for room
each inhabiting
his own personal cloud
of personalised DOOM.

The Glass Brain

THE GLASS BRAIN

She was off her food and couldn’t think fashion anymore. Something wrong. There were too many colours in the rainbow and a wooden alligator with a brass handbag, followed her through Sainsburys causing a stir. Then she had another bleeding period! Quell irritation! She felt like a porn queen in a carry-on film, or something that evolved wrong with one eye and 13 legs. Alice in wonderland was amateur compared to her. In the art gallery a famous actor was talking numbers with a distinguished looking woman in a big hat. It had to stop. She was university challenged! A mystery play that the mystery had gone out of. They did an X-ray. Whatever it was it would have to come out. She flicked channels waiting for a phone call. She went in on the Wednesday. Total anaesthetic. Undersea nightmares with arthropods biting her…
The eminent surgeon, sir Nigel Bart-Hornblower-Machin was, for the first time in his over-clubbed life, genuinely surprised. A glass brain! He sowed her back up and took a holiday in the south of france. Antibes resplendent in the morning haze. She came round to the sound of a fly buzzing against the window-pane. Buzz, buzz. She felt the same. “Well dearie. We’re looked into your brain. The problem is transparent. It’s like Godot. Nothing to be done.” Disgusted with medical science she discharged herself . What other avenues were there to explore? Madame Osmosis! New-age psycho-babble and tarot enumeration! Her basement flat in Earl’s Court smelt of cat’s (not the musical) and something else. Sit. Hands wandered her cranium. Cards were read. The hanged man loomed large. Too many swords. Not enough staves. The Empress and the Fool in fixed opposition. But still. No light shone. Osmosis was out. But then, as she trolled homeward, the light turning opalescent and ambient, she saw through it! It was simply that! A glass brain! One to look through, instead of, out of!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She felt happy and at peace, and caught a bus to Holland Park, even though it wasn’t in Holland, and it didn’t have a park.