There are people who might hope

There are people who might hope

For something different

But it is an ordinary day,

Clouds roll over

Twenty-six miles

From Calais to Dover

They know the way.

People who step off the train

Get awfully wet from the rain

Before they ever get home.

It might be an inconvenience

But it is just common sense

For goodness sake

You can never be too posh to wear a Macintosh

Although it better be a Burberry.

Big John sat in the corner

His head in the air

Eyes closed

UK size-nines crossed, beneath the chair.

He dreams of another day

Before the unkindness of indifference

Stole his future away.

At least that is how he recalls

The loss of his wife

From the cancer

That took her

Before her time.

He finds himself unable to move on,

And doesn’t realise

Mizz Tebbit

Would like him to.

The look of lust in her eyes

Whenever she glances his way

Gives her feelings away

Even as her words say something different.

Tom, the people eater grabs the attention

Of a stranger with wet hair and holds them, hostage

With stories of a different world.

The Cromwellian revolution

The king in a tree

Wars of the Roses

The Luddites and Levellers.

Ancient history

From before the flood

When in his words

English life was a thing of beauty,

Some people have been known to die

From over-exposure.

He never gives an inch

Talks ninety to the dozen

As brazen as a stand-up with a brass neck.

Fiona is a writer

Her fingers move across the keys

In a dizzy blur

When her head is over the laptop

Her baby blues glaze over

And the locals leave her to it.

She barely notices the comings and goings

Of commuters, slackers and backpackers

Or so they think

But her stories always carry a link

To the people, she sees in the cafe

They are her bread and butter.

Not a day goes by

Without one or the other

Becoming the story.

The morning news the cafe muse

The lovers tiff

The fall from a cliff

One day

They might read their life in a book

And what would they all make of that?