Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

If, as he insists, he hears what Dirk is saying, the problem must be one 
          of comprehension:
perhaps he is afflicted with some sort of aphasia, which scrambles 
          the signals
so that the sounds don’t translate, an auditory agnosia blurring 
          background
noise and speech into one unintelligible fuzz or maybe it’s an 
          autism

but one where his ability to decode communication is entirely

conditional on the interlocutor’s position within the corporate

hierarchy, certainly there is evidence of a disconcerting tendency

to psychopathological echolalia; phrases regurgitated

verbatim, buzz words pounced on and parroted incessantly, 
          (particularly,
it has to be said, ones divined of those ethereal visitants 
          from HQ)
in such ecstatic transports as to suggest possession, maybe he 
          is possessed
and can only comprehend speech in tongues or perhaps it’s just 
          because he is a

cunt, lickspittle, drone. Dirk, himself, has had a thoroughly productive 
          afternoon
fielding calls from irate customers and engaging in a spot of 
          handicap
hurdling, wherein the customer (or rube) is transferred to another 
          department,
in truth a randomly selected desk elsewhere in the cavernous 
          open plan

office space. Dirk and colleague Craig – he of spots, ornately sculpted 
          hair and silver
kipper tie – then observe and count the bobbing heads as the inquiry’s 
          pin-balled round
the room. Sometimes they’ll wager on how many obstacles the hapless 
          complainant
will have to overcome, or set a task to be completed by the time 
          the mark

is dumped back at square one. Now on the cusp of Friday night the Boneless 
          One appears
and summons the team to audience. They, mesmerised, obey. His eerie 
          droning
voice gently dissolves the marrow from their bones, its incantatory 
          quality
warps the world around them. Not long becomes eternity. His words 
          change the very

fabric of the universe. A future of degraded terms and conditions, 
          of
increased productivity targets, CPD, mushrooming bureaucracy, 
          of
tedium, is painted in rainbow colours and transformed into the first 
          sight of
the Valley of Shangri-La, a paradise where all burdens will be loosed 
          and fall

away and faced with this perversion of reality and the Boneless One’s 
          evident
auricular affliction, Dirk baulks and it just comes out Don’t flob in my 
          coffee
and call it a cappuccino, mate; don’t shit on my shoes and tell me it’s 
          Dubbin.
The glass is broken and things will never be the same again. A storm 
          is coming.