SUITABLE CASE
For want of a cuppa I wouldn'a had bus change from a £5 promissory portrait of the monarch, right for its dates in the limited edition of ink on cotton rag fibre and "colours which are difficult to balance on photocopiers" (Peter Symes); or need to pee at Birmingham New Street urgently; disembark, cheapskate with two cases on the X48 from Newman University interview. No taxi for me and time? No, O Maxx next to old entrance but to scout kerb encumberance, where fellow bussies had pointed. (They'd liked me in suit, justice scale of bagged books, siphoning the courier carriage cost to buy tickets from home to Llandrindod, booked 6 in advance of this call to B'rum one week ago.) I and the cases met accessibility politics, from North to Midlands to West until the station under refurbishment and its (indicated only by human index finger) entrance. Threading white concourse I reversed at the barrier, gave card to machine and its printout to a human, through to where loos are, where sign is "not for construction workers for nothing". Nothing's what I'd pay unless double or quits. Why exchange coinage? Why not urinate there and then on recladded Victorian public work unupkept? "Clean this, and my tarnish, I'm your boss," I seem to solo in my time among turnstiles to push prow on wheels. I wait for the cleaner. I hear her I imagine reword the injunction to constructing man spitting, orange jacket on back inside closing cubicle "YOW NEED THE TOI- LET, WHEN YOW 'RE BUILDING THIS STA- SHUN!" He angles his trochees. Monosyllable nouns toy he will stay where he's exiled till vacant. Wise to injunctions and care she's supposed to police here. Befuddled all made circus, I leave. And return. "Can I come on the same 30 pence?" "Yes." Seen by loo, last of my interview suit.
Ira Lightman is a poet, author of 3 books and several chapbooks. In his double
column poems (Trancelated atwww.ubu.com/ubu) he employs quoted text and
translations in collages. He makes public art, organizing a community’s poems
into visual art. He broadcasts on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb. He has set Creeley,
Gunn and Sward &c to ukulele.