Why don’t we stop somewhere nice for a cup of coffee?

She rolls the window down.
Sniffs the air that sizzles
between the car and café door.
Pow her body bristles.
I can smell the fucking bacon.
I can’t drink coffee here.

Silently he turns the key. A sigh.
Crawls slowly up the road.
To find another place they can perhaps
just have a bloody cup of coffee.
That would be nice.
Just as long as there’s no bacon.
Kids in shorts. Or peanut slice.

Christ why can’t they just this once
just fucking once
just have a coffee here?

And in his head he prays.
That tonight her nightmares will be filled
with giant knee-bare toddlers
made of bacon, nuts and chocolate
who kill her in her sleep.

 

Paul Vaughan wears a hat, but not in summer because it is black and looks ridiculous without a big coat. Any anyway, he wouldn’t get any benefit unless he took it off sometimes.

Actual Size

The brochure hooked me
with its beach so pristine, white.
Palm trees gaily waving invitations,
with lithe coconut-clad ladies with shy coquettish smiles
serving endless margaritas to my hammock in the sky.

I never learn that beds are made of promises,
that the advert’s just a lie.

Today I looked on Amazon
and saw a model of the Taj Mahal.
Hand crafted in pink blancmange,
actual size, just nine pounds ninety nine.
I ordered two of them,
one for me and one for the guy
that said he’ll come Tuesday to build me an angel.

 

Paul Vaughan loves his cat. His poems have cropped up in Agenda, Prole, Obsessed with Pipework and Dream Catcher, among others. Edits Algebra of Owls.