Basically Basingstoke

 

Here’s French Connection, there’s Fat Face

A grid-plan verdict on the human race

‘Black Friday’ morning, rain-sodden folk

Basically: Basingstoke

 

From Tie-Rack to Accessorize

Town planners don’t apologise

Retail units stapled, collated

TK Maxx, regurgitated

 

Shopfitter Andy screws and fixes

As shoplifter Sophie chooses and picks

From off the shelf in Superdry

And Clinton Cards, no longer piled-high

 

Magdalena from Lithuania

Sells Big Issues ‘neath the arcade

Where Tony the florist arranges his stall

Roses abundant, to keep them in-thrall

 

Tree-huggers protest the nakedly-mental

This Iceland, this Lakeland, this River Island

This sceptred-isle now looks so obscene

They’re painting Dixons dock-leaf green

 

Busker Tim rallentandos

Austin reads outside of Nando’s

Sits on a bench, searching for that joke

That becomes, basically, Basingstoke

 

Andy leers thru Superdrug glass

Towards Ann Summers, devoid of class

Touts her Knickerbox, paints her face

He’d Poundstretcher her little Paperchase

 

Sophie, her pockets replete with swag

Procures the aid of a Waitrose bag

For Waitrose doth hide a multitude of sins

Of plundered-assets that lie-within

 

Miss Selfridge looks frigid, the staff bored-rigid

Primark is now bang on the digit

Frequently underselling old John Lewis

And others that also seek to screw us

 

Its burgers (no gherkins) next to Dorothy Perkins

It’s time they renamed the Ferret and Firkin

Pigeons nod-dance their way in and out

Of Magdalena’s legs as she goes without

 

 

Then confidently strides into Costa

An incognito penniless imposter

Dries off,warms up, swipes milk and sugar

Trained Baristas pretend not to discover

 

Busker Tim finally calls time

On Dylanesque terpischorean rhyme

No contract for him, its pay as you go

Twelve pounds forty? – not much to show

 

Austin puts down his Daily Mail

Unfinished crossword tells the tale

Once crossed a box to ‘take back control’

Now signs in a box for fortnightly dole

 

Tony the florist abhors November

His stall, he now starts to dismember

Black Friday brought for him no sunshine

But just ten weeks till Valentine’s

 

Sophie has learnt how to de-tag CD’s

Adele, Ed Sheeran, Three degrees

Incongruous exit towards HIgh St.

And anonymity, amnesty, impunity

 

 

Andy, now tired, and fully-thumb-splintered

Goes home to shower, resolves to get wankered

Phones up the lads, do they fancy a skinful?

A few in the Angel then a bit of ‘sinful’?

 

John Lewis closes, management proposes

A bonus for staff, all presupposing

Shoppers go home, tardily heeding

Credit limits pushed, even exceeded

 

Meanwhile, over in The Bounty

Low-paid bar staff contemplate mutiny

Russell Bromley tries it on with Emily

With ‘come here often?’ repartee

 

Later, Andy’s in Wonderland

His own White Stuff cost half a grand

Again, he’s on the powder scene

Thru a rolled-up picture of the Queen

 

Takes command of the nightclub floor

But the girls aren’t looking anymore

Spilt Charlie marks his suit-bespoke

For this, this…is basically Basingstoke

 

Copyright Jody Redmires, 2017