There’s no word more middle class than ‘FLABBERGASTED’
But it’s not a word I heard many tongues say
During my teenage years,
Spent in a semi-detached at the back of a council estate.
We didn’t have that vocabulary, too busy being chip butty battered and bruised…
But if we did, this is how it would’ve been used…
Remember that time we camped out in the woods?
Clothed in tracksuits like polyester gypsies
Getting tipsy on shit cider,
Pituitary punks chewing cheap skunk,
Getting higher and higher
When that crack head came and set our tent on fire
We were… FLABBERGASTED
Or that day at my mate’s
Playing mind-bending gut-wrenching games on a clapped out X-Box 360
Twenty rounds of Tekken in the time when his dad was out at the pub, that slim slice of safety
Between the fatherly thumps that happened so routinely…
His mum was upstairs having a wee
When the police banged on the battered back door, no need for a key
Tipped off about the speed she kept in the cupboard
Next to the Kellog Crunchies.
The only way she saved herself from financial harm,
With a husband propped up every day at the bar.
That was nasty. We were… FLABBERGASTED
Or when my second hand bike got nicked, twice in one night.
They came to that house party with a hedgehog they’d found by the A35
Drop kicked that mal-prepared mammal like a spiky bag of shite
And when we tried to stop ‘em? Started a fight,
Fists flew to my chin
Then they tipped over your wheelie bin
Sweet and sour skin heads lighting fags and laughing.
We were… FLABBERGASTED
And then… That time we ran past that flat filled with wrong’uns
The football was on and… We said their team was shit.
So they came out, didn’t catch me but kicked your fucking head in.
You were too unconscious to feel hurt, splinters of teeth scattered by the kerb.
And the council house next door to them, home to an old man that they called a paedophile when probably he just had special needs and a lonely life.
Front door always open, wafting smells of warfarin and stale wee,
Hadn’t washed in weeks ‘cos they’d turned off his water,
His only oasis, His liquid catharsis.
He died that month, no one found him for weeks that poor bastard.
We were… FLABBERGASTED
But back to you, madam.
Standing in the queue for an expensive drink at a John Cooper Clarke gig.
Through off-white teeth you said you were ‘FLABBERGASTED’
At that work do BBQ when your colleague Miranda the Business Manager
Let her kids wear clashing shades of beige trousers. Sounds like shocking stuff.
I’m not surprised that after a week of struggling to survive such events,
You’re here for some working man’s poetry - money well spent.
And I hope that in between your rose-scented bathwater laughter, Middle class sniggers snaking up to the rafters,
That your Marks & Spencer sensibilities Aren’t too shook.
That when you hear poems about poor people, piss artists and abusive partners,
You aren’t left feeling too… FLABBERGASTED
But it’s not a word I heard many tongues say
During my teenage years,
Spent in a semi-detached at the back of a council estate.
We didn’t have that vocabulary, too busy being chip butty battered and bruised…
But if we did, this is how it would’ve been used…
Remember that time we camped out in the woods?
Clothed in tracksuits like polyester gypsies
Getting tipsy on shit cider,
Pituitary punks chewing cheap skunk,
Getting higher and higher
When that crack head came and set our tent on fire
We were… FLABBERGASTED
Or that day at my mate’s
Playing mind-bending gut-wrenching games on a clapped out X-Box 360
Twenty rounds of Tekken in the time when his dad was out at the pub, that slim slice of safety
Between the fatherly thumps that happened so routinely…
His mum was upstairs having a wee
When the police banged on the battered back door, no need for a key
Tipped off about the speed she kept in the cupboard
Next to the Kellog Crunchies.
The only way she saved herself from financial harm,
With a husband propped up every day at the bar.
That was nasty. We were… FLABBERGASTED
Or when my second hand bike got nicked, twice in one night.
They came to that house party with a hedgehog they’d found by the A35
Drop kicked that mal-prepared mammal like a spiky bag of shite
And when we tried to stop ‘em? Started a fight,
Fists flew to my chin
Then they tipped over your wheelie bin
Sweet and sour skin heads lighting fags and laughing.
We were… FLABBERGASTED
And then… That time we ran past that flat filled with wrong’uns
The football was on and… We said their team was shit.
So they came out, didn’t catch me but kicked your fucking head in.
You were too unconscious to feel hurt, splinters of teeth scattered by the kerb.
And the council house next door to them, home to an old man that they called a paedophile when probably he just had special needs and a lonely life.
Front door always open, wafting smells of warfarin and stale wee,
Hadn’t washed in weeks ‘cos they’d turned off his water,
His only oasis, His liquid catharsis.
He died that month, no one found him for weeks that poor bastard.
We were… FLABBERGASTED
But back to you, madam.
Standing in the queue for an expensive drink at a John Cooper Clarke gig.
Through off-white teeth you said you were ‘FLABBERGASTED’
At that work do BBQ when your colleague Miranda the Business Manager
Let her kids wear clashing shades of beige trousers. Sounds like shocking stuff.
I’m not surprised that after a week of struggling to survive such events,
You’re here for some working man’s poetry - money well spent.
And I hope that in between your rose-scented bathwater laughter, Middle class sniggers snaking up to the rafters,
That your Marks & Spencer sensibilities Aren’t too shook.
That when you hear poems about poor people, piss artists and abusive partners,
You aren’t left feeling too… FLABBERGASTED