Modern Life Is Rubbish

"Modern life is rubbish", 
Old Tom Clifford knows 
Waking every day at six 
To get his deadly daily fix, 
Smoking twenty so his cancer grows. 
See him off down Taunton road again 
To get in before his boss - 
Tardiness only makes him cross - 
He hopes his heart can take the strain 
Of another day breaking his back. 

"Modern life is rubbish", 
Katie Sedgewick moans, 
Spending twelve hours on her knees 
Scrubbing floors, lacking expertise, 
Doesn't help her aching bones. 
She scrubs just to pay the rent 
And feed her craving for the fags. 
As the rest of her battered body sags 
She's off down the bingo that keeps her spent 
And teetering on the edge of the sack. 

"Modern life is rubbish" 
Valery Henderson discovers 
In the moon's shining glare
She turns in her office chair, 
Losing more hours and more lovers 
To her job's bottomless pit, 
Demanding and cavernous, 
Relentlessly ravenous 
For her moments and her spirit 
Without any real payback. 

"Modern life is rubbish" 
John Bristow reckons 
Standing in the dole queue again 
For his bi-monthly stain 
As the sneering clerk beckons 
He's cap in hand 
Like a street-bound drifter 
Reduced to shop-lifter, 
A bounty in the wasteland 
Expecting the last attack. 

Modern life is rubbish 
And we're all waiting for collection, 
Tipped and crushed in the mechanism, 
Mashed together, a mass of pessimism, 
A clod of abjection and rejection 
Unbalancing society as we gyrate, 
Working to separate ourselves from mess 
We've become through the daily process - 
We try to comb ourselves straight - 
Another delusional sidetrack

Sally Mann, American photographer, was born today in 1951.

Wes Anderson, American filmmaker, was born today in 1969.

Nina Hossain, English journalist, was born today in 1975.