The Gilesgate Monologues
Or A Deadline Extension on the 8th Day of Creation
Or confessions of a shitboy
Lloyd Bolton, age 20
Raised on red milk
I′m pretty young for my age
I have my mothers eyes and my father's contempt for Roger McGuinn
I left school with 12 GCSEs, 3 A Levels and only one good song
I′m just another Russell Group punk
Just another Distrokid kid
Just another dime-store Tom Verlaine
Waiting for my 15 seconds of fame
When the child was a child
He ate Coco Pops for breakfast
And so he does even now
Even now I take pains to restrict the time I waste on the PlayStation
My temporary enemy but eternal friend
I take comfort in the only button on my phone
'Please Mr. Zuckerberg, look and see
Is there a message on messenger for me?'
I listen to my Spotify On Repeat on repeat
I am left with no time to read anything but Penguin Classics
Sitting on the grass with a book and an outfit
Skimming through the mysteries of life
While the sports kids step-step around me
No one in this house opens the curtains
The girls watch the news in their sleep
Night after night, what does it mean?
Drum machines and ketamine
Crawling out of bed for the lunchtime kickoff
Gracelessly frying an egg with shallow hopes of a goal for Mo Salah
I lock in to another 48 hours of worthless depression at the hands of my own fantasy football team
I saved £4.49 on Amazon shipping by bringing my order total over £20
By adding a book of poems by Allen Ginsberg
And the winner is Late Stage Capitalism
My basket was a baby
Crawling towards that free shipping
Morning noon and evening
I hear the Hermes knock, the Yodel knock, the Amazon knock, the parcel force knock, the Uber Eats knock
And finally Royal Mail slip a leaflet through the letterbox
France Gall is called France because she is from France
Nobody really calls me Frank
Except my dentist and all important documents
Tomorrow I shall embark upon my first year as a schmuck
I leave university with first class honours, a graduate job and no girlfriend
Grandmothers slowly enter the digital age
Kicking and streaming
Welcomed to a world that isn′t terrified of smiling adverts for Amazon
Of films that play at double-speed
Of bands that don′t exist
Welcomed to a world of violence aestheticized, anaesthetised
A Netflix Original Series
Keep your friends close and your animes closer
Welcomed to a world endlessly hurrying towards what?
Game shows, jazz, trains, Brigette Bardot, consciousness, comedy, Bob Kattar, architecture
The San Francisco 49ers
We scream at eternity for 80 years
But what do the immortal dreamers do all day?
Nikolai Fedorov waits in line for a cup of coffee (faces in top corner like news)
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky scans his Clubcard to earn Clubcard points
Kazimr Malevich builds a CV from an online template
And I read it up
And write it up
Only to conclude that man must ask for a deadline extension
On this the eighth day of creation
