Harry The Spiv POEM Will you be my FaceBook Friend?

Will you be my Facebook friend?

My former flatmate from Bridgend?

It’s been some thirty years last March,

Since you called my then girlfriend a tart.

And we fell out over the washing up,

The milk, your socks, oh… and my puking up.

But that was back in nineteen eighty five,

When albums were on vinyl and cost two ninetyfive.

I typed in your name and twelve were listed.

Including a dermatologist whose tattoos weren’t artistic.

A UKIP councillor who’d swallowed fifty euros and died,

A Glaswegian catwalk model who liked her Mars bars deep fried,

An eighty-year-old porn star with a very wrinkly… er wrinkle?

And a cross-dressing plummer who looks a bit like Eric Pickles.

Those cover photos of lakes and arctic ice flows

Say we’re free spirits who work nine to five and shop in Tescos

And profile pictures of our kids or pet cats called Sheebah

Pics of hen nights in Dublin or a booze cruise to Riga.

Is that you, it’s got your nose and your spots?

But you’re sun burnt, it’s not Hotwells, it’s somewhere hot.

I’ve assumed that you’ve changed, I’ve assumed that you’ve got old,

I’ve assumed that you’ve got fat, I’ve assumed that you’ve gone bald.

So it’s a choice between that one or this,

It’s take your pick, it’s hit or miss.

Well here goes, hope for the best,

Right, I’ve sent a Facebook friend request.

I’d like to meet up and talk about your life

Did you become an astronaut, play for Brislington or sleep with your driving instructor’s wife?

Do you remember the French au pair

Not that one, I mean the one with dandruff in her long dark hair

Or our maths teacher who smelt of cabbage

And how we cheated in exams in English Language,

Those demin-clad days when we all wore flairs

Smoking silk cut by the Chemistry lab stairs

It’s gone now, which if you reply

Will take my list of friends to five,

My garden gnome, Linda, my kids and litigating ex,

Not quite the number you might expect.

I’m not competitive about Facebook, I’m not a bore,

But I’ve got to beat your one hundred and fifty four

I admit it, in truth I won’t pretend,

I simply want more Facebook Friends.

Accepted! What’s this pornographic email?

A webcam? No I’m not a thirteen year old girl.

No, I’m not a milf, a swinger or into dogging,

I’m won’t be groomed or change into stockings.

You’re not Taiwanese, you don’t live in Gibraltar

Delete! I definitely don’t want a Facebook stalker.

Look at the time. I could have sent an old fashioned letter,

Social networking, huh. Although… perhaps I’ll have a go at Twitter.

Harry Mottram 2014