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Woking

Wolf-whistling Woking,
Where everyone is soaking
In whistle-spit:
I watch them, as I sit
With the woman I call mine –
Craven, lascivious, malign.

Wolf-whistling Woking,
Where everyone is choking,
Through blowing so hard.
The flowers growing in the graveyard
Are watered by the whistles of mourners:
Through rounded mouths, tight at the corners -
Sometimes with fingers, bulimia-deep -
The lecherous mourners retch and heave
And whistle while they weep;
Wolf-whistle while they grieve!
And the flowers that they leave,
Lean from the vases, and leer -
Leer at the dead, and those who are next;
And the words on the gravestones appear
Like a mobile phone's predictive text.

Woking, invoking this instinct,
Whistles in the shopping precinct -
In the glass lift, at the lowest tier,
And up each floor to the next;
And the words on the gravestones appear
Like a mobile phone's predictive text -
Spelling out, predictably,
A wolf-whistling R.I.P.

There’s no romance in Woking,
No one there is ever wooed –
Just rows of couples, groaking
(Like dogs begging for food)
At other couples’ arses.



Original published in Monkey Kettle #16