With respect to Mr Dylan. And also to Mr Stickley, who suggested six years ago this might be a good thing to write and then failed to do so.
Aisle Sixteen (Revisited)
Well, Tarquin the banker was pinstriped and neat
coked up to his eyeballs and chewing his cheek
when dreaming of methods to catch out the meek
an underling entered and started to speak:
Please sir, I need help our investors are starting to scream.
The big man just smiled and replied quite serene:
Take all toxic assets to Aisle Sixteen.
The slick perma-tanned arch-svengali of pop
was telling a crowd how he climbed to the top
he boasted of hits and he laughed off the flops
the slavering audience gave him his props.
Please tell us, they cried, how you find all these synthetic teens?
Much later he laughed in his black limousine
I find them, he whispered, on Aisle Sixteen.
Well, Kelvin the Killjoy stirred hatred for cash
and most of the nation woke up to his trash
each morning’s invective a post-modern mash
of homos and foreigners ripe for a bash.
With underlined adjectives Kelvin would empty his spleen
and crass little Englanders drank it like cream.
The name of this column was Aisle Sixteen.
In tenement Krakow the rumours were rife
a Polish professor petitioned his wife:
The good strength of sterling could mean a new life
Lord praise the EU, we can live where we like.
But now he serves lager to kids wearing Armani jeans
and she’s receives two pounds an hour to clean
the mock Tudor mansions on Aisle Sixteen.
Well Herman the writer was canny and wise
his main aim to try and sensationalize
a genre that otherwise drew in the flies
which often meant he won a literary prize.
Each one of them judge by a neo-con pal from the scene
He trotted out trash with a zeitgeist-y theme
and this year his subject is Aisle Sixteen.
The young politician - no stranger to spin
a neat line in sound bites and translucent skin
he turned to the press with an odious grin
and said: my dear people where do I begin?
We’ve done all we can, took advice from a specialist team.
Our policy has been approved by the Queen -
we’re outsourcing Britain to Aisle Sixteen.
