New poem: Chair

I was in the barber. When the barber had finished

cutting my hair, I got up and looked down at the

metal plate where my feet were, it was the metal

plate joined to the chair I had been sitting in. The

writing on the plate, said, ‘UTOPIA’. I put my jacket

on and stood at the bus stop. I wondered if I had

just been sitting in Utopia. Was that where I was?

Had I just had a moment in part of a perfect

society? I thought about what it had just been like.

Someone was cutting my hair. He comes from

Turkey. He used scissors. He also cut my beard.

He did that with an electric beard-trimmer. He

also blew some hot wet air into my face. It came

from a hot wet air machine. When it was all over

I gave him some money. Then I saw the sign on

the chair. So far, this didn’t sound like Utopia. Not

like a whole vision of the best possible society. I

was just sitting in a chair and someone was cutting

bits of hair off my head. Unless that’s what Utopia

is: people sitting in chairs having their hair cut.

And their face steamed. Then getting up and

standing at the bus stop. Actually, there were

some other things. They gave me a cup of coffee.

The young man who made it was learning

English. And learning how to cut hair. And there

were some newspapers on the table before I had

my haircut. I read them. And there were some other

people there. We talked a bit. That was before the

haircut. And, like I said, after the haircut, I waited

at the bus stop. Not for long. A bus came along

pretty soon.