In Asda at Tilbury
at Asda in Tilbury, Essex, England.
One steps through a dog end fag butted foot bath
by the electronic sliding doors into a vaped haze decompression chamber.
Here the multi~ national grocer must take note
in an on~time~food~chain~management kind of way
the difference between instrumentation and orchestration
how cauliflowers ploughed back into the land economy
or wonky vegetables, take a day off from the vegetative nature of patriarchy.
The vernacular spelt like bread with common sense,
just off the roundabout from Windrush Avenue and Colonial Way
by the Amazon Fulfilment Centre and Old Mother Thames, the slag
like the old whore society lifting her skirt and leaving a terrible stink.
Where wishes are hatched and dispatched in quartered twenty four hour shifts
and practical life matters arrive by public bus or private transport.
Pawelski clocks on in pink fluorescence, through his minimum waged turnstile.
To consolidate Group Think this morning’s internal government news update
reminds civil servants of twelve things to agree upon about poverty
that point number seven insists the average distance below the poverty line
has been shrinking according to The World Bank matrix used, fer the telling.
The metre of cluster evidence is Stanley the dilly dallying retiree
safeguarding his chivalrous behaviour by not burning the baked beans
in a bleached out restaurant among the hapless clamour of ignorance –
he rarely sees the light beyond the light reflected
Intelligence is overrated, spastick, over there, by the pet food aisle
where Naturo the holistic grain free food for digestive and allergy sensitive dogs is availed.
A young black girl in a pink tutu, angel wings strapped to her back
is heading excitedly towards Mr Kipling’s Unicorn Slices
sold for the price of a fat white boys ransom in re-fined sugars.
Discarded english country apples and a browning organic banana skin, half consumed
in a plastic tray of plastic cherry coca-collared bottles. Please recycle.
Here we are, fetid moss growing in damp velcro. If only magpies could shop,
nirvana would be here by the inclined travelling check out
especially for the diss abled, confuses the capable –
a shell suited european truck driver stacking up on Lithuanian cheap meats
and a cornucopia of polish pig carcasses for the long journey home.
God and nature re-assemble in the car park by the mother and baby slots
the socialised high visibility employee pushing baskets to the click and collect
one final hurricane spin scrubber, by JBL, to deliver
to the backside of a heavily financed blue Mercedes.
Amidst the detritus of empty pizza boxes seagulls, on a Thames river sabbatical
vie with the ravens from Hangman’s Wood, scavenging for tit bits
in stores now, subject to availability. Save money, live better.
Pawelski, the migrant, on a limited lunch break from his shift in the Fulfilment
is arrested by two community police officers in the summer outdoor barbecue section
of the gardening aisle and convicted later of arson by an immoderate local magistrate.
The big bold motivational messages strapped across the walls in his staff canteen read
Are right, a lot, have backbone, disagree and commit, invent and simplify,
bias for action, ownership, insist on the highest standards, customer obsession
dive deep, think big, hire and deliver the best, deliver results, earn trust
of others, frugality.
The souls of dim eloquent dead and dying slaves shop in Tilbury.
Peter Handley
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