Three Poems by Benny Roberts

EVERY DAY IN THE OFFICE 

This office surrounds me with mediocrity
conversations are banal at best
I sink into my chair and try to fight the boredom
I take on some filing and lose

I look out the window at the office across the road
see endless reflections of myself
soul after soul at similar desks
clutching on to nothing
they never dreamt of this as a kid

a gang of three boys and a girl go past
they’re carrying crates of beer
lucky, young, free bastards
that girl will be crying by the end of the day
even the best male friend can break a girl's heart

the girls in this office are full of anxiety
all think they’re too fat
I’d fuck every single one of them
apart from the bitch of a boss
I do have some morals

lunchtime comes and there’s a stay of execution
there’s nowhere to go except the supermarket
the trolley collectors look blissfully happy
who argues with you over a trolley?
I sit in my car and eat my sandwiches
I’m surrounded by doppelgangers
all wondering where it went wrong
brushing the crumbs from their seats

I get back to the office
those damn kids are probably drunk now
that girl’s discovering what lies ahead from men
I’m sorting out the photocopier
I win the heartbreak stakes by a shade.



HOT DRIVE

The sun beats down on my aging Citroen
sapping what's left of my spirit
on this goddamn drive to work
to an industrial estate hell
which even Satan would wince at.
The misery is punctuated only by girls
stripped to the bare minimum by the heat
revealing tanned flesh in all its glory
for a moment I forget about my in-tray
until I see my supervisor getting out of her Ford
a carriage straight from the underworld
paid for by misery and spite
and driven on pure arrogance.
I can see her legs
withered, veined and a sickly shade of death
the same fate that awaits my soul
I turn the car round and head home.



DESPERATE DAYS

She was like a cigarette butt
screwed up
unwanted,
nicotine stained.
“You’re very attractive” she slurred.
What was that white sediment on her teeth?
it was thick and furry
like the hairs springing from her upper lip.
Her oestrogen had given up long ago.
It really highlighted the age gap.
Yet I was thinking about fucking her
my young cock pushing into her patchy haired cunt
forcing its way past those dry, discoloured labia
doing its best to avoid the warts.
Two years without sex was really starting to take it’s toll on me.
I dry heaved at the thought of coming in her.
“Come here, sweetie,” she gurgled.
I smelt stale alcohol on her breath.
It had a tragic scent.
There’d been life there once
but some bastard had beaten it out of her
taken everything that made a woman good
and reduced her to this.
I dry heaved again.
She went to put her arm round me
but I left
she deserved better.