WAITING PAD
London, UK

INTRODUCTION

Double JD

w/ ginger ale

Allahambra

Coke

Lobster roll

Sunday roast.

Medium rare.

X3.

Spring roll

Sweet potato

—--------------

House red

—--------------

2 bread.

Mac n cheese

Desir rogue

3x americano

2 cold

1 hot

I fantasise

Primarily

About

Glassing

A customer

And running

Out of

Here

And not

Waiting

Everytime

I’m here

I think

Very earnestly

About suicide.

In comes

A disturbed wreck of

A man

And his

Obscene

Fetish wife.

He’s been

Fattening

Her up,

And now he

Loves the

Taboo in public

He’s moved

Around to

Sit directly

Next to

Her. It

Is inappropriate

On a table for six.

CHAPTER 1

‘I’m a writer

By passion,

And maybe

I like it for

The same

reason actors

Do’ - a lie

I tell him

About oxford

He can hear it

In my voice,

I tell him

I can hear

His London,

‘Yes, me and

My wife-’

He swallows

And non-nods

At her empty chair

Again. I say

‘You meet lots

Of people and

Find characters’

‘Perhaps really

You already

Knew your

Characters.

But then they

Find you.’

I would like

His clairvoyant poetics

If they did

Not ruin

This whole poem.

‘Which artists

do you like?’

I scramble

Around Beckett

& DFW, he

Nods and I

(XknowX) eat myself,

He has read

The jest, he

Knows, he

Asked me

Because he

Knows it’s

Awful, he

Knows I lied. All of a

Sudden

My

Cover is

Blown

‘I work in

Bathrooms, have

For 25 years,

So I’m always

Looking

At everything

…you don’t

Often see

CHAPTER 2

Espresso martini (x2)

—-------------------------

Truffalo

Glass of

Her friend

Has just

Arrived. Shes

Older and

Conservative

And

Speaks a

Language

He doesn’t

Appear

To know

He hasnt

Looked at her

Once.

He has drunk

3 beers.

He just engaged

By accident,

Mindlessly

Toying with

Grinders,

They wonder

If he wants

To play

He tries to

Turn away

Again,

He turns to

Her voice like

She were

Far away,

Or,

He were far

Away.

He looks

Off, into his

Boredom and regret

He looks like

He doesn't

Belong in

His life,

That this

Disingenuousness

Cannot last,

That his

Whole life

Can't just be

A phase

Of

Groundlessness,

And never finding.

CHAPTER 3

What being

‘Grown up’

Means, and

That failure

(To decode

His being)

Wrecks him

Out onto

The desert

Plains of

His feeling.

Nothing.

I think

He has

Worked out

I am writing

About him

There are his

Eyes

Everytime I

Look up.

For remember

This is not

Bullshit. I am

Standing

On a restaurant

Floor, staring

And observing.

And he knows

Now I know,

He looked me

Hard in the

Eyes,

Picked up his

Beer, cocked

His head to

His wife,

Nodded so softly

That he didn’t,

He didnt let

Himself

Acknowledge

Anything,

But everything.

Tropical

Prosecco.

Blood orange

Gin

Lemonade

28

14.5

280

112

14

406

COLLABORATION WITH LONDON BASED POET OLIVER COX

SOFTWARES:

BLENDER

This collaboration project is made with Oliver Cox, a London based poet. We worked together to recreate his experience dealing with the pressures of being a waiter in a reality that offers few alternatives for young artists. The endless repeated tasks and this feeling of aimlessness is really what I tried to translate through the animations and the distortion of the body. All of these poems were written on his waiter pad, while serving tables.

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