MONOTOPOLY

You're having to push the bloody car again

When you hear her voice. She's Lithuanian.

I like to use her for cleaning the house with.

Now you comes to think of it,

you're not so sure it was a grammar mistake.

We're most of us cheaper than automata.

The economics are predictable.

You cannot quite believe UR here again.

DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.

Another double six! This is better than sex.

You can't work out whether it's Monday yet.

Friday was off board. Wild. Disorientating.

It felt good.

Now the journey around the centre must continue.

Keep calm.

Traipse around the West End one-way system.

Take care to avoid red hotels and green b'n'bs.

A lackey in a uniform points at you, like Lord Kitchener would

If he worked on Park Lane, and you, a skanky Northerner,

Had got lost looking for St. Pancras.

The die says you don't have to linger.

You push your disproportionate chunk of uncomfortable metal

Around the corner to the cheaper quarter.

Wherever you land up now won't break the bank.

DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.

The dice roll. The wheels slide. The dog is dragged.

The T-Rex is forced along too.

The Best Retro House Party in the Universe, Leicester Square.

Where, with none of the heroic endeavour of Sisyphus,

Nothing will befall you.

Here containment is the aim. The name of the game can change.

The illusion of chance must persist. All is flat and papery;

All that is required the regularity of circularity.

Nothing to break the eye line

Save the twin silos of randomness and municipality.

The message reads: Kirsty Allblob has been twatted off quitter.

She's very Surrey.

There's a boot coming up alongside you now.

Strictly no legroom. Strictly against the run of play.

Angel, Islington. The local property prices are strangely stagnant.

DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.

You don’t think you can afford the hotel bill. Oh for a Travelodge!

You remember an off-hand moment down the Essex Road and
shudder.

Who are you anyway? And shouldn't you have taken the dog?

You push this over-sized bonsai around like it matters.

Another double six! Humiliating. Isn't that the point?

You spend years avoiding each other until one night

You co-incidentally pitch up together in an enclosed space

Under the guise of a good time

And with the stated purpose of transcendence

In a shithole next to yet more student accommodation.

If the transcendence you crave is a pretty face,

It's no wonder you're crazy. Double four. You turn the corner.

And get out of there fast.

Deal. Trade. Own more.

DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.

You push past a public utility. It remains oddly unprivatised.

You wonder whether it will be re-nationalised anyway.

Your guts churn like a cliché. Must be Sunday evening.

Poetry: life with all the painful bits put back in.

A broken down narrative. A small to medium opportunity

To encapsulate your melodrama for those playing banker.

Protective clothing may be worn, but it doesn't help.

Around the perimeter there are four inch nails.

A fenced off area under which the homeless might sleep

Is a bold sign of the times: PRIVATE PROPERTY.

You push your personal crisis into a corner.

You sit behind bars while what passes for life passes you by.

A top hat sails past the finish line and takes the bank.

The thimble protects your thumb.

The rest of your body is sold and burnt.

The landlord wins, as always.

The law of rent triumphs as inevitably as fate,

Which they invented to fuck you over.

Once in a lifetime you may ask yourself why,

But once every five minutes

Smack yourself in the head with the iron

Just to make sure you're still alive.

DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.