so you lied but only to the machine
now praise it the advent of voice-mailas a certain reflex tucks the prefatory remarks
of a distance call up its sleeve and playsback the sample – now somewhere else
you're absent you can almost breathebut then there's the ergonomic chair
(resembling emptilythis latest voluntary redundancy)
therethe well-wishers
a dutiful fewupstairs set to extort
the ghost-writersof each winning C.V. janette
could be volunteer to the stage neatly
restructured turned before the audienceas the booth adjacent says
aren't we all a more random
potentially lesshuman cabinetry? best not be seen
play it safe write about it as ifsomeone's got to keep the culture running
Christopher Brown
Sickie (10.2.06)
1 July 2006