Sea Shells Sea Shells on the Sea Shore

in London town people live in boxes
they work in boxes and
their jobs are boxes

in the morning they eat breakfast from a box

then they go to work in a box
sometimes the boxes are broken or they stick together

once the boxes were blown up
but they put them back together again

at work they sit on a box
and work at a box in front
of a box inside a box in a box
in a box

for lunch they order boxes
of food and eat them in front
of their boxes
sometimes they spill crumbs on
their boxes

during the day they have meetings in boxes with people who work
in other boxes

on the way home they stop
at the nearest box
to drink stuff that comes in
boxes but is not served in boxes

after this their path home
is not so box-like

but they find their way back to
the boxes they live in and stumble inside

sometimes they talk to people through
little boxes they hold against their ears
but usually they stare at boxes while
eating food that comes in boxes
and is heated in boxes

when they have had enough they
set the boxes next to their beds to
box them out of their dreams
again in the morning

and all of this and all of London
is in a box
with a lid tight pushed down on it
by a fat drunk box shaped man
with bum crack sticking out his pants

maybe he is the clouds

and he’s just taking the piss

but they call this freedom

- from the collection, Some poems about life and stuff by stuart barnes