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
- 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.