The Best restaurants
I’ve sat in the best restaurants, where the people talk and laugh, over tender meat and fishes,
And all I saw was a crowd of starving souls, chewing at their wishes.
With the cream on the top, with the fat on the bone, with the sauce for the goose, the gluttons on the loose,
Never full, always empty; where there’s more there’s always plenty!
You can bet that his plate will hold ever more,
As the skin-bone hand of want creeps round the door,
All eyes turn as hunger crawls in, as wasted food is piled in the bin.
But it’s no sin to be the rich man’s kid; it’s no sin to want to be rid, of the signs of those who can’t feed themselves; who only want half of what’s on their shelves!
With the cream on the top, with the fat on the bone, with the knives at the ready, with the heart made of stone.
I’ve sat in the best churches, where the people sing and pray, over tender lost souls and the loaves and the fishes,
And all I saw was a crowd of starving souls, chewing at their wishes.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
And anoint yourself with the money, oh honey!

A cold wind picks up, a cold wind picks up, a soft wind picks up,
The desolate homes, laid out trick-track style, trick-track style, trick-track cheap, trick-track style
A cold wind picks up
And there is hope, next to No-hope street,
When you reach it, the houses are unfinished as you sit on the foundation stone.

Brothers and sisters, leaking their poetry with every step, walking toward No-hope Street,
Three turnings right from Mortality Road, go past Faith Avenue, Liar’s Walk and end up on Fatality Hill,
There is hope, there is hope when you reach it the building has stopped.

Everyone do their little bit, as corporations sell us more shit!
Take your paper cups and plastic bags, make them into ersatz fags,
That won’t kill us like they used to!
Now science makes us vaping whores, chemical fry-ups of marrowbone gloop!
Hey lungs! Expand, if you dare! Hey lungs! Expand if you dare, Hey lungs! Expand, if you dare!
There’s no oxygen left to spare!

Cake music, pie art, flip-flop poetry, ballsed-up newscasts, ridiculous breaths,
Kite-flying, fart-filled windbag players in Parliament, meant only to be mental, duck-faced, mealy-mouthed priests and priestesses with their messages
Firm but friendly! Cruel and bendy! My name’s Wendy
Got a light? or
Do you wanna fight?

Don’t memory foam me! Your bed is a board, your mind is a hoard of bountiful inventions,
Merely conventions and one more reason to sleep on the floor….
Floorboards forever fading….
Floorboards forever fading….
Floorboards forever fading….
Cake music, pie art, flip-flop poetry, ballsed-up newscasts, ridiculous breaths, kite-flying, fart-filled windbag players in Parliament, mental, duck-faced, mealy-mouth priests, priestesses, their messages,
Firm but friendly! Cruel and bendy! My name’s Wendy, got a light? Do you wanna fight?
Here’s Dick with the weather.

Karen Langley, 11/11/23