' ...Just Another Day Down On The Dole Queue.... '*

I am a bad pacifist
when my local job centre
told me 'We have targets',
as if their aims at life
had been stunted before then.  
I replied 'Targets are for armies.
Am I in your line of fire?'.

I half expected one of the staff
to throw a pen a me, and say
'There you are' as their idea 
of inclusive school boy humour.

But they did not even suggest
that I look at the cards on their boards, 
profiles of jobs that folk might apply for
where if job adverts came with 'sell by' dates
then half of what advertised was past it.

They had long since marked me down 
as 'passive aggressive-unemployable
for lack of experience'. I was one of many,
but one of the few to attempt the wit to prove it.

*A line from the prologue to the side long suite
by Roy Harper 'One of those days In England Parts 2-10',
which took up all of side 2 of his 1977 LP 'Bullinamingvase'.
Find the whole album on youtube here.