By Jeff Gallagher
Your hunger makes you smack your lips –
what will you take away? – and then you
gape astonished at the menu:
all he seems to serve is chips.
Crudely carved, familiar pap’s
the sole ingredient of the dish –
half-baked and tasteless gibberish
regurgitated in your laps.
The champion of the simple snack,
he offers up his chips for free,
washed down with vox pop, beer and tea
(as long as no one answers back).
He feels his anger growing colder:
this hypocritically correct
potato head must now select
another chip from on his shoulder.
Then he spouts his fascist blarney:
‘Nothing like the good old days –
I blame the crusties, blacks and gays –
Just stick the buggers in the army.’
For all this salt and grit and dirt,
and blood and bile and common sense,
the chef receives your compliments,
then serves the same for your dessert.
And giving you an angry look,
the Hard Luck Cafe’s grumpy host
proclaims he’d have the world on toast
(if only he’d been taught to cook).
And as you leave, he’ll bravely brag
he speaks his mind, and helps the poor –
then spit upon the sawdust floor
and drive home in his brand new Jag.
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