Bottle Bar Nine - A Policital Conference Party

Jane Air as a bottle bar stall holder at a policital party conference...

I can no longer park
On my street

It is conference week

*

My road is taken over
By protest marches

Students against student fees

Workers against corporate greed

Eco-activists against cutting trees

For airport terminals we don't need

*

The cliffs
Have been combed by police

Police cones
Decorate the streets

Police with machine guns
Greet me

*

Before I am passed
Through a tunnel of security to be…

*

Uploaded
My identity card
Barcoded
Computerized data check
CONFIRMED
Jane Air
IDENTITY
AFFIRMED

*

‘jewellery and shoes’
On the conveyor belt

And then body searched and felt
For items that might explode

*

The Prime Minister
Arrives within my first hour

The reception room
Slows right down
To a standstill

While he greets
And meets hotel staff
And then everyone
Carries frantically on
Once he’s gone

*
I am put on a makeshift bottle bar
Bottle Bar Nine
Near the function marquee
But in there
The booze is free
So no-one comes to me

*
It is a relatively quiet
Opening night
But my next few shifts
Are a different story...

*
My bottle bar is shifted
To a busy location
In a corridor bend
Between Mountbatten bar
And the library

*
My takings are low
In the early evening
Come 3 am
When everyone is battling
To get to the main bar
I become an absolute
God-send

*
They still gasp at the jacked up
Prices of my bottled beer
‘And I want a receipt with that please dear!’
Don’t they all !
Someone even wanted my entire till roll

*
My till gets jammed
As the corridor gets rammed
I barricade myself in
From the thirsty passing crowds…

*
…Presidents, delegates, celebrities
Television news presenters and MP’s
( And anyone who’ll pay the membership fees )
All asking me for directions…

*
…to meeting rooms, suites, function marquees...
...restaurants and private parties...

*
There are faces I know
And faces I didn’t know
Everyone was there though

*
‘Excuse me,
Can you tell me where
The Prime Minister is making his speech
This evening ?’ someone asks me
‘I think he’ll be in the Dorchester suite’
But don’t take my word for it !

*
The Prime Minister
Comes down the stair
I know the right time to look
As bodyguards shift into place
With their fumbling grace
Then he’s out in a flurry
As if in a hurry outside

*
Where the cliff-face
Is a media stage show
Banks of cameras
Stationed everywhere
As if attending a film premiere

*
The moon’s overhead stare
Overshadows
All the flashlight glare
With a radiating glow
Of which nothing can compare

*
While the other eyes
Of the night’s skies
Twinkle awake
As if by surprise
For their own speckled
Spectacle of a show

*
The tired tide yawns
As it stretches its drawn - out reach
Up and down the beach

*
And out in the bay
The iceberg creaks
( Of which nobody speaks )

*
Transactions are happening
Through me
And all around me
On monetary
Political and
World-wide scales

*
News crews
Set up stations in front of me
For political tales
And interviews
Political views
Of political news
Political news
Of political views
And prompting clues
Of political coups
All traded and paraded
On the hotel floor
Or the conference hall next door

*
Underground
The kitchen
Is to be found
Hot and heaving -
- tempers are frayed
Long contracted hours worked
Into overfilled days

*
While on 24 hour shifts
Hotel porters carry suitcases
Without using lifts
In order to be more swift

*
We all make use of the
Underground passageways
A burrowed maze of corridors
To cut across the hotel floor
Quickly and without delays

*
A temporary panic sets in
As a grand’s worth of sweets
Has been stolen from one of the suites

*
Men wore dark serious suits
Women wore sharp tailored evening wear
And spiky stiletto boots
Strode everywhere
*
‘Sell Sell Sell !
Make them
Spend Spend Spend !
We must beat what we made last year !’
That was my induction briefing - send

*
But to me we were all
In the same boat together
Getting through the long nights
To the bottle end

*
On my final shift
I am released
From my bottle bar
To float about
On Champagne reception
And then taken on
To a media party
Down by the pier
And then back again
For the final few rounds
Of collecting empty glasses
And empty bottles of beer

*
I become so tired that
Tiredness becomes normal
My 12 hour shifts
Taking their toll
As is witnessed
By the scrolling roll
Of my long till roll

*
No time to care
to listen to speeches that blare
Out of canteen TV
While we’re busy eating

*
My minimun wage
goes up in the early hours
of the final day
hooray

Http://www.gonewiththewinds.co.uk
Chapter 21
Political and social satire found mainly in Part Two
( Part One : A Gothic Romance with global warming backdrop )

http:authorsden.com/janeair
( poetry and updates )