I have found the perfect tonic for the daily grind
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the nine to five, writes poet Frieda Hughes, there’s nothing quite like the open road...
NEC MOTORBIKE SHOW
The online form is precise: what is my claim? Describe my claim.
Describe the contract clause that entitles me to claim. Describe the precautions
Taken prior to the claim. I filled in the many small boxes in which type scrolls
Up and down but nothing can be seen all at once. Three hours later I ‘close tab’
And my efforts erase. The online form is precise: I must begin again.
And they wanted photographs resized when the maze
Of a pathway portal that linked me to the recipient was too narrow
An invisible gateway, invented by the thieves of free time. The computer
With its language of emails and requests to do things I’d never thought of,
Repelled me, but was hard to avoid in the comfort of my own home.
In need of rebooting, I escaped in my Hepburn best; at a 1963 film-themed party
The feather collar and cuffs of my home-made dress placed me more firmly
In the Black Crow category for The Birds, than an Audrey impersonator
Pouting at Cary Grant’s Charade. In the days left, I worked late, designed fast,
And drew for longer, to finish templates for archways of trees and owls
To show a client on Friday. This physical evidence is my lifetime graffiti,
And finishing set me free for the motorbiked hours it took to deliver lunch
To my beloved working at the NEC. The motorbike show and the longing
For the Supercharged Kawasaki I’d seen, removed me for an afternoon
From office ephemera, and the hunger of the black hole that is my computer screen.