Do you still remember when
They kept the whole wide world on hold
And we sat there waiting months
Just left out hanging in the cold
Month on neverending month
While every week or so a voice
Blamed the volume of our calls
As if this whole thing was our choice
While they played us scratchy trance
And ears numbed and hands went dead
Til, eventually, it changed
To endless days of Simply Red?
And do you remember still
How hypnotised by their delay
Thought would drain away to leave
Our reveries the space to play,
To imagine other paths
To future possibilities
And alternatives took flight
Each spawning new infinities
Of how to live, what to do,
A Galaxy of Different Worlds,
Sat there, waiting, left on hold,
While inside all those knots unfurled?
Then with a cardiac click
A voice in Bangalore or Bray
Said "Sorry that you had to wait.
What can we do for you today?"
Then their flat Call Centre tones
Announced "Full Service is Resumed!"
Worlds inside your head collapse:
Our old, dead one has been exhumed;
The possibilities constrict;
We're stitched in a tightening suture,
Despatched, packed in a cardboard cage,
To our claustrophobic future.