The Melting Pot

There was a caf? on clumsymetaphor street,
a trade of two halves, each only accessible
by its own door, no windows, set menus:
on the right side, in big font, queg and chips
?1.50. The left side served just shuttle salad.

The rightside rockcrushers and the leftside
acu-men blissfully ignored each other with
the help of the wall and lack of windows, 'til
the day Rockcrusher Teddy, short of readies, touted
for work in the left: "Any rocks need crushing?"

Faintly amused, the present acu-men, shook heads,
beamed, and pulled a seat, it seemed, by invitation.
In for a penny, in for a pound's worth of shuttle salad,
(loads in them days) Teddy understood the subtle blend
of herbs which sung to his tongue in posh. Nice nosh.

What's more, when conversation turned to poliphosy,
Teddy's fierce intellect slapped the others about
their cheeks, cut through glib gibberish like a machete
through an egg. Acu-man Cook said, "You should
read this book." Looking at it, Teddy tear-choked

(Miss had said, don't bother with books; not for you).

Cook went right to refind his book; this took long
enough to scoff a melting pot of queg and chips, its
stove in the belly. Then, on the telly, came a headball
game. A racket! Cook, transfixed, unable to hack its
poetry in movement, mad adrenalin. SCORE man!

(Mummy had turned off headball. Ruffians. Dinner.)

So before long, common requests for side shuttle salads,
queg-chips with mine, poliphosising about headballing,
headbutting over poliphosy, rack-umen, acumushers,
sledgehammers to the wall, that pain in the past falling
brick by brick. Every dickhead under one roof. Lush.

Of course, the wall was a supporting wall, and the roof,
ceiling came tumbling around their ears, their beers,
their queg/chip/shuttle-salad sandwiches, their fears
of being here. Emergency services, female tears, plans
of rival caf?s to knock down walls put on ice, shelved.