Shuttlebus North

The huts and the umbrella leaves play like stock
footage at the window. The Tanzanians talk
like actors playing Tanzanians. The red road
looks mm's thick - a gust, and it'll fade
like henna to reveal a barren studio floor.
It's brick-dust or nutmeg. The heat's from the glare
of the key light ' you're sitting where the lead would sit.
Your hair is stiff with styling mousse, and not your sweat.
That fresh, crushed sugarcane juice you bought last night
at the beach ' it was 80g of Silver Spoon, plus Sprite.
But how? You saw them put the cane right through the press!
That's telemagic for you ' that's the art of artifice.
Nothing's too elaborate. The coconut trees'
bending like longbows is the work of puppeteers
heaving back on ropes behind that 'blue sky' mural,
the birds are mounted on a giant mobile, pastoral
scenes are filched from other movies. Your fingertips
were blushed by the make-up artists. As for the maps,
they're torn from the front of some fantasy trilogy.
Poole potters are responsible for local archaeology,
the shuttlebus is on hydraulics ' look! The driver's steering
like he's on the final lap at Silverstone! A glaring
error there, surely. It's all one great chicane.
You're in an English cinema, but trapped inside the screen.
The dialogue is stilted and the cast are all inert,
and the pothole's that are pounding underneath you? That's your heart.