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Jeremy Dixon

• Herausgeber: Arachne Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 14

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

While working in a well-known pharmacy chain, Jeremy Dixon found surprising inspiration. His poems were written on the ends of till rolls and smuggled out in his socks. Anyone who has ever worked in retail will recognise the characters and situations, and the magnificent management absurdities; but Jeremy also bring his perspective as a gay man to bear with witty and wicked results.

Leseprobe

Introduction

This collection is the result of my part-time job in a well-known chain of chemists, which rather unexpectedly turned out to be a great source of poetic inspiration.

Most of the poems in this book began life as hurried lines scribbled on the back of a length of till roll in the lull between sales. As staff members were not allowed to carry any personal items while on the shop-floor, I hid these scraplets in my sock and prayed that today wasn’t the surprise-spot-search-in-the-store-cupboard day.

This book is dedicated to all my former colleagues and customers and to everything that I learned from them.

We’re SHOPPING, we’re shopping

Pet Shop Boys

{STAFFED}

00/01

With the night come drunks

from the Bay wanting

Red Bull and paracetamol,

who swear when the till

won’t sell them five packs.

Come methadone paper

wavers, talking backwards,

crashing electric doors.

Come red raw builders

buying aerosol plasters,

their Pepsi kids swerving

Perfume on scooters.

Five minutes to go

and a bulldogged woman

is after some discount

Revlon foundation. All there is

is a labelled gap. She leans close

to whisper: I can get you cut.

00/02

I’ve won an Armani Homme tester

for being the pinkest assistant at today’s

mega-points bonus event. I wear a pink

shirt and a pink tie bought cheap in Oxfam

Penarth. The Beauty girls sport pink tops

with pink skirts, pink tights and pink shoes,

flick aerosol-sprayed pink hair,

pink glitter irritating eyes an all-day red.

So when my victory is announced

it’s not a surprise to hear a low rumble

from the make-up counter. And I bet

it didn’t help me writing an acceptance