The drivers I worked with
were angry,
because their money
wasn’t good enough,
because their women
didn’t want them when they
were drunk, and they
only worked up the will
after a few pints.

Some of them
were raw from
messy divorces,
their accounts drip fed
to children
they weren’t allowed
to see.

Others were many miles
from their loved ones
sharing a room with five others
so they could buy a house
back home within a year.

They were angry
about the other guys
about other races
about the queers
the paedophiles
that useless government,
everything those red tops
told them to be angry about.

They had slipped,
drunkenly, lustily,
bitterly into their own
failures, jobs they never wanted,
marriages that happened
of their own volition,
children they knew nothing about
and the only people to blame
weren’t the terrorists
or the paedophiles
or Tony
but themselves.

During break times
they’d interrupt me
while I read Dostoevsky
“Here, look what they’re up to now!”
They’d show me the page
with the hysterical
block capital headline,
a picture of a hated politician
or a riot at a football match
and on the other page
a picture of a pretty skinny
young woman, just above the age
of consent
with round happy breasts
a body that would snap
like a rose branch
within their clumsy
angry embrace.

As they sat and read
I’d watch their shoulders tense
their breathing hasten
sucking hard on their fags
slurping their instant coffee,
exclaiming fackin’ hell
before interrupting me again.

They were hooked
on their own anger,
sinking their venom
into their own backsides.

Some even listened to the angry
radio phone ins
where angry people got
worked up about people
they had never met
situations they had never known
except through the grainy lens
of newsprint.

This countries going to the dogs!
My workmate concurred.

No it isn’t, I replied.

He pointed angrily at the radio

It’s a radio, I said
whilst pointing out the window.

We were in the middle of a park
taking a break from cutting the hedge
The roses were pulsing
like magnificent gowns
from the wardrobes of their buds

Mothers and toddlers were
stumbling laughing together

Pensioners were parked on the benches
taking in every bit
of what could be their last day on earth

And the dogs were in their element
breathless, bounding
sniffing other dog’s arses
getting the ride if they were lucky

If the country was really going to them
then they deserved it more
than we did.