Caff

COME ON IN,
say sticky plastic yellow letters
in that warm sizzling fat steam vocabulary of
ALL DAY BREAKFAST
PIE AND MASH
HOT AND COLD DRINKS

Come on in to the worker’s cafe
where every table is a smoking table
where you can be that 14 1/2 stone
of unshaven, mud-flecked, callous-palmed,
unshaven, hung-over, foulmouthed,
tobacco-stained, unapologetic
masculinity
that this skimmed cappuccino society
wants to castrate and send to a counsellor

Come on in to the last bastion of the page 3 front
where you can eat your beans, break your wind,
then look to your colleague as if you’ve done
a rare and wonderful thing

Where you can ask for three sugars
without having to repeat yourself
Where you can leave the Daily Sport open
at whatever page you like
(apart from the horoscopes)

Where the toast is loaded with so much butter
you could lubricate a chainsaw with it

Where you can slag off the boss all you want
‘cos you know he’s up the road
at the Coffee Republic

Come on in
for full English breakfast £2.20
(£3 with tea or coffee)
Super Special Breakfast £3.60
Mega Special Breakfast £4.25
Vegetarian Breakfast
£1.20

Come on in
bring your headache
bring your divorce
bring your beautiful gut
bring your five day beard
bring your eyes red with whiskey and held back tears
bring your near-relegation second division hopes
bring your pawnshop refuse dreams…

Come on in
take a seat
you don’t even have to wipe your feet
‘cos hygiene ain’t your main concern, yeah we know
that’s why we stopped buying soap for the bogs
about a decade ago

That hotplate’s gonna keep on sizzling for you
‘til half past eight this evening
for breakfast lunch and dinner
that’s all the time you need to fill that cantankerous void
‘til it’s time for the pubs to take over