Who are they, these bright and the beautiful,
Beaming smiles and assurance from behind
Marble top counters and oak-panelled desks?
These nameless dreamers from a dozen lands,
Polite ambition coursing through their veins,
Selling breakfast and cheap wine with
Cocquettishness and rounded accents,
Then leaving these contrived and temporary
Temples of careless, corporate indulgence
Through back doors, onto garbage-strewn lanes,
Eyes grainy in the night, cigarette in hand.
Who are they, these slight and the dutiful,
Offering charm and glamorous veneers
In starched blouses and pressed waistcoats?
These necessarily anonymous from everywhere,
Quiet disdain bleeding from their pores,
Nurturing private hopes of medicine or a
Simple hostelry by the Aegean's white sands,
And colluding in the pretence that somehow
This playground for credit-fuelled tricksters
High on coke, and the hollow promises of whores,
Offers escape from ordinary's grey-skied banality.
11th October 2018