Notes from the office chair Vol. 1

A collection of poems composed on email at the

workstation by Tom Parkinson and Tim Neville, between

September 2009 and October 2010.

II

Foreword

‘In the half-life of the office chair, lowly desk workers limit

their output to the occasional mouse-click, slowing their

metabolisms like pythons digesting goats. So it was in

September 2009, when the muse flitted through a Civic

Centre window and landed on Tim’s desk. Compelled to

type, he emailed the stanzas to me, and a year of lyrical

tennis began.

My contributions are only confections really, but I’m

pleased with their musicality. If they provoke a smile, they

will achieve their objective. A very different poet emerged

in Tim; he ventured beyond the ABAB rhyme scheme into

more challenging forms, and was rewarded with a richer

(and larger) raft of poems.

So I concede to being the Coleridge to his Wordsworth,

the Gunn to his Hughes. Nonetheless, a true partnership it

was, and our slim volume is testament to the redemptive

potentials of poetry, friendship and time-theft.’

Tom Parkinson

Blackheath, October 2014.

III

Appraisal

Appraisal’s been and gone now

And much to my dismay,

They’re happy with my output;

Ergo, for me to stay.

Happy with my filing,

My data, my reports,

Happy with my work ethic,

My better-practice thoughts

Dear God, make me redundant!

Packed off with half a year’s,

‘We won’t be needing you now Tom’-

(cue perfunctory tears)

I’d sniffle my farewells

And then, once I was out of sight,

I’d click my heals and hit the ‘net

To book myself a flight

T. Parkinson

IV

Summer in the office chair

It happened on the bits of grass, all around the towns,

It happened climbing rock pools, with distant waves a-

sound,

It happened in the woodlands, trees proudly full in leaf,

But summer didn’t happen here; stolen bloody by a thief.

T. Neville

5

V

English Summer

As nature beckons blossom forth

And darling buds unwind

So unfurls the bunting string

And jollity presides

The sun beams warm and balmy

Through a cloudy cider haze

As Morris Men cross short-sticks

And the Kentish livestock graze

In Hampshire, by the chalk stream,

A vicar casts his line

Among the hatching mayfly

There to catch a brown trout’s eye

At many a Norfolk prep school

The butterflies cause a fuss

Inside the schoolchild’s tummy

Waiting for the 11+

So is the English summer

As we’re led to believe

These days it’s rather different:

At hot desk, here to grieve.

T. Parkinson

VI

Chiswick Pool

Chiswick pooling it on a Tuesday,

We arrive when it’s nearly dark,

Still £4 despite all the builders,

just about find somewhere to park.

Floor of the changing room’s filthy,

The lockers require 20p,

Eyes on the floor when you’re changing,

The toilets of course smell of wee,

So it’s down to the far end then pausing;

A chance of momentary rest,

When you see a gent of nearly 80,

Stride in; frankly much past his best.

A towel on his arm like a waiter,

His shorts also later in life,

Is he here ‘cos he’s lonely,

Or getting away from the wife?

Easing into the pool like a sugar lump,

He doesn’t dissolve in the tea,

But swims unfeasibly slowly,

Yet reaches the end comfortably.

The schoolboy within one cries mocking,

He wouldn’t fit in at the gym,

He wasn’t trading at Lloyds this morning,

It’s countdown watching for him.

In a culture of speed and selling,

Where the phone won’t let you be,

At Chiswick pool in the evening,

Are lessons in quiet dignity. T. Neville

VII

The Sandwich

With all the best intentions

I lay out the brown bread

Not topping it with full fat cheese

I opt for ham instead

Forgoing salty butter

Top it with another slice

Voila: the next day’s luncheon

Failing to entice

Nonetheless I walk to work

Self-satisfied and smug

Not today to spend my cash

Like all the other mugs

Yet as the slender finger

Points pointedly at ten

My stomach gurgles angrily

‘Where’s that sandwich then!’

Will’s no heavy fortress-

The battlements are stormed

By sanctimonious sandwiches,

I sit with face forlorn

T. Parkinson

VIII

Thoughts from the Civic Centre.

The first few days of sunshine,

Effect you as a rule,

By relaxing worn down temperaments,

Leaving one happy as a fool.

Warm breeze engenders memory,

Cycle rides in May,

Brings back hillside fumblings,

Beneath the sun’s array.

When life filled the nostrils,

And you were free to roam,

But now I sit in concrete,

An office chair’s my home.

T. Neville

IX

Notes on Aviation (A Sonnet)

From the seat where I sit I sometimes

In the endless pool of blue, see white lines.

Made by the criminals of carbon crimes,

what freedom is imagined in soft minds

Gazing up? When flying though one is drawn,

To look down! Is that the cliffs of Dover?

Small, and there a boat, on sparkling watery lawn,

Not now the fear of looking crumbly over,

Time chides the daydreamer’s brain,

As bovine eyes pining from field to field.

But cud underfoot is soft and can sustain,

Rebel office worker who will yield.

The saddest rebel you can find,

Is the rebel of the mind.

T. Neville

X

Nuts

Serve me here no opiates,

There’s nothing in my pipe,

Talk not to me of whiskeys,

What?! Sniffing glue is tripe.

But something there still calls me,

Stops my afternoon,

Pistachios from Lebanon,

Sing their salty tune.

While all sense of moderation,

(As boredom turns its screw),

Is thrown aside so quickly,

You’d think I was someone who,

Could be sitting in a doorway,

With addiction in his eye,

Now mandible chewing fiercely,

And shells upon the thigh.

T. Neville

XI

Snow Hope

habitude a man forgets,

five days of every week,

are wasted in the sadist terms,

where 8am is bleak.

Yet when the water from the sky,

Does fall most crystallised,

A flame is lit inside a man,

With freedom’s in his eyes.

“Try and get in if you can”,

Takes expectation away,

But peeping round the curtain,

At the beginning of the day:

No! The progress of the cars,

And the trains still seem to run.

No sitting in, or man of snow,

And certainly no fun.

T. Neville

XII

08:48

Looking at the same faces, the train

Threads through Victorian tunnels, just thought.

“she’s wearing that hat again”, kinetic daily

acquaintances all huddled in, warm tube,

radio 4, airport novels, the metro.

Past Willesden an orange sun gushes in,

rushing round the rocking room, unifying all.

T. Neville

XIII

Global Warning

I read the daily papers

And I watch the evening news,

I keep abreast of science

And observe the arts reviews,

I know the seas are rising,

That armageddon’s writ,

Yet being at a distance, I couldn’t give a shit.

T. Parkinson

XIV

Work Games

Toward what, pray, do we hurtle?

Not death alone I hope!

Only faith and optimism

Keep me from the rope.

At work I am creator

Of a world unique to me

With rules and governing logic

Quite apart from A and B.

I set myself conundrums,

Tasks and silly things

To keep myself from boredom

Until the 5 bells ring.

At 9.00 I land at desk,

And promptly disappear

To make my morning cuppa

Until quarter past draws near.

At half past I am off again

This time towards the loo

Therein to sit and think a while

-emerge at quarter to.

No sooner am I back at desk

Then off I am once more

This time with documents under arm

I stride out of the door

With purposeful comportment

I conceal my idle mind

(to all would-be observers

I am industry defined).

XV

Twixt 1 and 2 I’m lunching

Give 5 or ten each way

At 2.15 I’m off again

To waste more of my day.

Between these times I’m versing,

On facebook or email

How we must keep our dignity

It’s nothing short of gaol.

T. Parkinson

XVI

Thoughts from the civic centre part II

Pick me for jury service,

My life is in a rut,

I’ll deliberate over fraud, affray,

Or axes to the nut.

Fill me with self importance,

Put me up in town,

I’ll sit nodding sagely,

then poolside in my gown.

I’d do my civic duty,

Sequester me where you may,

But pick me for jury service,

I can’t stand another day!

T. Neville

XVII

Kilburn

The Crack-heads on the high road,

The white frost upon the grass,

Soup in Sainsbury’s local,

The faces like slapped arse.

The sun is weak and milky,

Why don’t magpie’s freeze?

Choc dip slides down nicely,

days pass with horrible ease.

T. Neville

XVIII

Leave

Absence makes the heart grow stronger,

In hatred as in love,

And working life, once prompting anger,

Mocks like a blackened dove.

Poetry’s a poultice,

A strange and sacred balm,

Through drawing pain to vivid light

Returns my soul to calm.

T. Parkinson

XIX

Steps

Absence’s futile demonstration,

The duvet breeds a lonely man,

Yet each frosty step is aberration,

In the early days of Jan.

T. Neville

XX

Leavings

The train slides up to meet them,

The bosses and the slaves,

Forced their from the landlord,

Towards the daily graves.

Back home in the evening,

But what of daylight’s left?

I’m never going back there!

I won’t feel bereft!

but sitting in on Monday,

the familiar story’s run,

two happy days with TV,

perhaps a little fun,

then looking for a better job,

then a type you’ve known,

then desperate for bar work,

then in the park alone.

Then give it about three weeks,

Then calling through the trees,

At 4:45 one evening:

“can I return please…?”

T. Neville

XXI

Two hours.

The two hours sat still like muddy winter puddles,

Let them pass,

Five pm may be a hollow prize but boredom muddles,

Minds made to sit still upon the numb ass.

Birds flew over, wind blew pinking leaves

Tapping at the damp window hopefully,

Men made to go outside smoke as shifty,

like cats in foreign gardens. Seconds cleave

Each from the last, tired ideas sit wooly

In PC heat. Let them pass. Shit.

T. Neville

XXII

Monday collaboration

It’s Monday morning sir,

It Monday morning be,

They’re pissed off on the Silverlink,

And on the Irish sea.

Most famously a Dubliner extolled of Monday’s woes

(Not Joyce or Shaw you understand, but Geldof, Rats in

tow),

A lofty verse it isn’t, nor is the verse well sung,

Indeed it ranks with Monday

Down there on the lowest rung.

T. Neville/T. Parkinson