work

To Do List

Assorted Poems, Some poems

1. Delay with an urgent hesitation.
2. Be unwavering in vacillation.
3. Embrace the art of equivocation.
4. Read a book on procrastination.

5. Dilly-dally; dither; be dilatory.
6. Drink tea through the day continually.
7. Look up ‘avoidance’ in the dictionary.
8. Ignore all forms of worthwhile industry.

9. Break for lunch

10. Ponder the intrinsic nature of work.
11. Re-prioritise which tasks to shirk.
12. Allow three hours to hem and haw.
13. Lollygag; chew my jaw.

14. Stroke the cat; lose my pen.
15. Re-do tasks from one to ten
16. Lurch and flounder; loll and wallow.
17. Write To Do list for tomorrow.

Stuart Mould has invited you to join his professional network

Assorted Poems, Some poems

I

Stuart Mould has invited you
to join his professional network.

He is wearing
a tuxedo and the smirk

of a man unfamiliar
with the concept of rejection.

Stuart Mould has four thousand
and fifty-eight connections.

Small wonder given the way
he generates

revenue
you never knew

existed. It’s all there
in his results-driven profile.

It appears he will go
the extra mile

in his position as
Customer Solutions Architect.

I don’t know why
but I click accept.

II

Stuart Mould has endorsed you for the following skills:

Marketing ✓
Leading Teams ✓
Targeting ✓
Weaving Dreams ✓

Scuba diving ✓
Semaphore ✓
Lego building ✓
Harp (Grade Four) ✓

Chess playing ✓
Home baking ✓
Soothsaying ✓
Lovemaking ✓

That’s a lot
of endorsements to get

from someone
who I have never met.

III

Stuart Mould has written you a recommendation
that you can include on your profile page.

“Bold strides this colossus in the workplace
with footsteps firm and full of flawless grace,
noble of purpose and so fair of face,
greeting PowerPoint with such fond embrace.

O Mighty Strategist! Leader Complete!
The Pivot-fabled Slayer of Spreadsheets!
Analytical Artist! Office Athlete!
Leviathan of the Corporate Elite!”

I must admit
I hesitated.

It seemed a little
overstated.

IV

Stuart Mould has invited you to join him and his family for two weeks
in their delightful villa situated near the Rio Real Golf Course,
and just ten miles from the charming, bustling city of Marbella.

I went, of course.
I’m no fool.

It had a private
swimming pool

where I, alongside
his four thousand contacts,

swam and schmoozed,
snoozed, relaxed,

after mornings
on sun-parched links,

and the clink of ice
in noon-time drinks.

We, the Professional Network
of Stuart Mould,

his corporate army,
paraded, parasoled,

a linked in, in sync
commonwealth.

I eventually met
the man himself.

He was not as bad
as I expected.

I felt I had –
at last – connected.

Awaydays

Assorted Poems, Some poems

We have been here before;
we who slouch
at formica tables
and fish adeptly in sea-green bowls
for cellophaned sweets
to the music of fizzy water.

For

We who drowse
in powerpointed twilight,
as time slides slowly past,
we restless slumberers,
fearful of break-outs
and the tyranny of role play.

For we

We who doodle
on hotel-headed notepaper
whilst listening distractedly
to the distant hum
of the motorway
which leads to other places.

For we are

We who leave
money on the table
and grab at pendulous fruit
which hangs so low.

For we are the

We who wait
in expectation
of the fifteen minute respite
offered in the form
of plated custard creams.

For we are the awayday

We who nurse
feelings of jealousy
towards marker pens
that run out
before we can.

For we are the awayday boarders.
We are the onboarded.

And this is the way the day ends
This is the way the day ends
This is the way the day ends
Not with a bang but a flipchart.

The Clowns

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Know this: those commuters
causing commotions on locomotions
with their funny fold-up bikes,
the vélo origamists of the vestibule,
are out-of-town clowns.

Their bags do not house laptops
or dossiers of documents,
but wigs and whistles, red noses,
hand-buzzers and balloons,
water-spraying carnations, outsized shoes,
giant toothbrushes, chickens.

Follow them out of the station,
post-disembarkation.
Observe the nearness of their feet
to the saddle as they straddle
their bicycles and comically pedal
through London street puddles,
and peddle their selection
of slapstick services
to city centre circuses.