Pillow Fight - a poem

Pillow Fight

When night terrors come knocking

At three in the morning

Don’t lie there and take

What you wouldn’t day awake

As they press all your buttons

Mock all your failings

Find you out as an imposter

Alone in the universe, smaller and lost-er

Pray, pray, pray

To be delivered to next day

To shrug off the shroud

Of dark thoughts aloud

Scare the mares of night

Into flight

Cloven hooves departing as curtains open

Daylight banishes darkness once more

To the other side of the moon

Or so they say

Either way.

The pillow is not your friend

©  LS King 2019

Health and Safety for Students

When I was a child 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!' was drilled into us as a mantra from an early age. Today's parents seem to have forgotten to teach their children even this simple resilience so that they grow up afraid of words as well as sticks and stones.

Meantime the Green Cross Code is no longer taught and teens are allowed to leave the house in outfits I would never have been allowed to leave the house in (often glued to ear buds so they cannot hear any risks approaching them as they walk or cycle along) so where is safety consideration when it comes to the physical side of young lives?

Inflammatory Words

 Students need safe spaces 

 Non-platform places 

 For anxiety abounds 

 If there’s no topic out of bounds 

Challenge is aggression 

And you don’t want confrontation 

When you have half-formed views 

Gleaned from Buzzfeed news 

Let’s not mention the secret lunchtime trolling 

When not virtue signal extolling 

Brexit is bad but other pro-choice is good 

And you are the most puritan in vegan food 

Demand uncontroversial debate that doesn’t over-excite 

And chimes with the views which get facebook likes 

We can all agree that kittens are cute, right? 

But rigorous debate, that’s the stuff of hate! 

Granted, you have all the answers 

 But why take chances? 

What do you mean hysteria, hypocrisy? 

Of course you stand for free speech and democracy 

As long as they cancel that speaker, the one who won’t pre-submit his speech 

So you can vet for free speech offence breach 

Fascist? Shut the front door! Racist! 

 ©LS King 2017

Stop, Don't Jump!

I have been on a number of suicide prevention courses during my university career, in case I should ever come across a student in distress. Meanwhile national suicide levels continue to rise, particularly among the young, I suspect, as the act becomes more socially acceptable as a means to solve one's problems - an unintended consequence of the push for assisted suicide for the chronically ill - though no suicide charity has dared to speak up so far.  Which prompted the following thoughts on whether a more unconventional approach might be called for if I were to come upon a youngster on the brink.

Stop, Don’t Jump!

Stop, don’t jump!

I’ll have that dewy complexion, those bright eyes, that salon hair, if you don’t want them

I’ll have those admiring male looks, those limitless job opportunities, that chance to start over.

I’m a great believer in recycling unwanted pert breasts and precision perfect teeth

I could do with a new pituitary gland, a new pair of ears, 20/20 vision,

And knees that don’t creak

Which look wow in mini skirts

Your restless energy and raging hormones will be put to good use by me.

It’s true what they say that youth is wasted on the young

You just drink, smoke and fritter it away

Or at the first obstacle, call life a day.

But who asked you to cure cancer?

Just don’t be an a**ehole and look when you cross the road.

That’ll do for starters.

Maybe a random act of kindness here and there?

If you can tear yourself away from your smartphone long enough.

But if you can’t manage life’s basics, hand your meat suit to me

Let me try on that all over tan for size.

I’m sure it’ll fit.

I’ll pout for the rest of your selfies

Send your friends updates so they’ll never know

And you do carry a donor card, right?

What, you’ve decided not to jump after all?

Bugger!

©LS King 2017

Eternal Youth At My Mother's

Eternal Youth At My Mother’s 

In the bedroom of my childhood home I fall, I fail, I flail
In fitful draughts of sleep
Wind howling to a whistle
As it sharpens itself
On eaves and chimney corners
Long forgotten creaky floorboards and door hinges
Remembered once more
By the angst-ridden teenager
Now almost middle-aged.
The house has hardly changed
80s Buck Rogers wallpaper and all.
Perhaps if I had stayed, I wouldn’t have either.
Downstairs, I hear my mother burrowing
Through her hoard to the kettle in the kitchen
She wakes early these days
Me? I go back to missing exams in my sleep
And turning up to school
With no bottom uniform half
For a final hour before the alarm bell relieves me
Of another shift of nocturnal incompetence.

 ©LS King 2017

Ode to Superfood

Having been brought up in a 'macrobiotic' household long before such things were fashionable (my first chick peas were served to me in a petri dish at the age of six, for goodness sake!), I find myself both astonished and bemused by the cult of 'clean food' that is now all around me and the millennials trying to outdo each other on various Facebook groups with vegan oneupmanship, not to mention the not at all morally dubious trolling of any vegan novice who dares to commit a crime such as spreading honey on their toast or letting their child enter an egg and spoon race with a real egg!

However, while it's great to have access to so many amazing new foods, I do wonder about the environmental impact of having up to a dozen exotic ingredients from as many countries on each plate! Talking of which - I never bother with any other but Hawaiian Spirulina dahling - the rest is very second rate...

Clean Food for Free Radicals

Hands up all you atheists whose body is a temple

Hark at my green example

All hail, mighty Kale!

Seaweed, Flaxseed,

Green tea, Broccoli

Porcini, Zucchini

Swiss Apple, Saw Palmetto

Couscous, Sweet Potato

Omega, it’s Wheat Grass!

Those go-to berries, Goji Berries,

Cousins Blueberry and Cranberry

Black Raspberries, Morello Cherry

Pomegranate and Kiwi

Sesame, Carrot, Wasabi

Ginseng, the man root

Asparagus and Beetroot

If you’re not too Quinoa

On Courgette spaghetti Cauliflower

Pass the Pumpkin creamed Starflower

Avocado, Heritage Tomato

Pineapple, Mango risotto,  

Raisins Muscat, Dates Medjool

Papaya, don’t preach

I’m in fuzzy Peach

Just like a Pear in Himalayan rock salt

Raisins from Red Grapes, Sultanas from White

Know your Onions, get your Oats

Give a Fig for Chilli Peppers

Butter no Parsnips with Royal Jelly

Cactus juice, a heart of Palm

Abide with me, your superfood psalm

Beansprouts, Buckwheat, Chick pea

Yoghurt and Mulberry Smoothie

Walnuts, Plums and Millet flakes

Artichoke, Hemp and Strawberry cake

Oranges, Apricots, Turmeric

Spinach, Aubergine, Wild Garlic,

Cacao powdered Cashews

Lentils, Carob and Brazils

Sweetcorn and Sugar beet

Pasta forged in Wholewheat

Fungi on Halloumi

Truffle-sprinkled Gnocci

Cinnamon and cardamom

Nut milk, Fruit of Sharon

Cider vinegar sourdough

Spelt out in Bran and Molasses Rye

Get a PH in balance before you die

Honey, Chia, Spirulina

Aloe Vera, Gingko Biloba

Butternut squash, Banana

To be a centenarian, think fruitarian

Eat your food raw

To be drop-dead gorgeous when you bore

Bathe in Coconut oil, no planet despoil

Just be Grapefruit

You live in the age of Quorn

And silken Tofu for a new you

I don’t mind Polenta, but hold on the Placenta

Easy over, just how I like it.

                              ©LS King 2017

Gluten-wise?



Sign at Brighton VegFest this year

 

Revenge Poem to a Former Housemate

Controlling The Weather

When you swear
You pollute the air
You say you're green
Yet can't keep it clean
You turn it blue
Shame on you
You claim to use hate to punctuate
Your narrative, my will to live
I suspect it's more to hide
A void inside
Or that you're about as articulate
As an invertebrate
A poor ambassador for our race
Should they visit from Outer Space
When you swear
You pollute the air
Turn it ugly and stormy
Where it was blue sky and balmy
Don't walk, run
From those who spite the sun.

LS King 2016

You know who you are...

Coming Soon to A Town Near You...

City Heritage Tour 2043

This blue plaque marks the spot of the last shop

And this plaque marks the spot of the last Library

This is a statue of a scholar where the College once stood

And here is a hologram of the old Victorian pier

To give a bit of atmosphere

Next we have a living museum of a drinking establishment

Known as a pub

You can have a Latte shake here at the end of the tour

Over here stood the Regency theatre

Over there, the Art Deco cinema

Next to it a Gothic-inspired church, would you believe?

This blue plaque marks where the market was

Before it became a block of living pods

And you'll laugh when I tell you

But this used to be a Post Office

Lastly we have a plaque to commemorate the public toilets

The last of their kind

Now we're digitising humankind

LS King 2016

Visiting Time

When can I go home?

This is your home Mum

How long have I lived here?

Two years Mum

Where’s Dennis?

Dad died Mum

When?

Two years ago Mum. You didn’t want to live on your own, remember?

Where do I live?

You’ve got a nice little flat just down the corridor Mum

I want to go home

This is your home Mum

How long have I lived here?

Two years Mum

Where’s Dennis?

Dad died Mum

When did that happen?

Two years ago Mum.

What did he want to go and do that for?

I dunno. It’s sad isn’t it? Have another piece of cake Mum

Confessions re Modern Poetry

In some quarters I could be shot for writing this but maybe it's about time I started living dangerously considering I'm never going to die young of the usual artistic mores...

Confessions of a Reader Who Doesn’t ‘Get’ Modern Poetry

Everyone except me seems to be in the know

About why poems often interrupt themselves mid-flow

Or end a sentence in mid-air

Leaving me to divine some hidden meaning there

They focus in such detail on achieving the abstract

Won’t be pinned down by anything so mundane as a fact

An opinion, a meaning or some thing to get a grip on

It’s like having a mountain to climb without a clampon

Tantalizing and elusive they allude to realms beyond my ken

One day I’ll wake up and understand every word, but when?

Modern poets often claim they don’t know what it’s about themselves

So what chance do I, the reader, have? And do I have room on my shelves?

For all these tomes of complexity, the odd shimmering line here and there

That save them from consignment to Oxfam (and my innermost despair)

Seems to me modern poets delight in making readers like me feel idiotic

Readers who are otherwise quite intelligent, or at worst, quixotic

Of course I can choose the easy life, I can pretend to comprehend

Refuse to invite doubt and speculation as to the vim and vigour

Of my intellectual rigour.

Or share any suspicion that imbibing the clutter of another’s head

Hoarded thoughts seemingly randomly disgorged like a Jackson Pollock said

Am I a whistleblower on the emperor’s new clothes? Should I eat my words?

Should I start a picket for the return of rhythm and rhyme?

Or invent a new sub-genre with sub-titles for each line?

I suppose time will tell which way poetry goes

And which way next the wind blows

                                                                ©LS King 2014

No Pain, No Gain...?

No Pain, No Gain...?

My stomach protests what it can't digest
My incisors hurt when I'm indecisive
My limbs stiffen when I'm inflexible
My blood goes anemic when I lack iron
My heart aches when it's broken
My voice is lost when things go unspoken 
My nose runs when I'm run down
I risk the big C if I let things eat away at me
Whenever I risk going off track
My body gives me a symptom
to nudge me back
But why, oh why, doesn't the bloody thing just send me an email?

                                                        ©LS King 2014

Horsegate (what would Mr Ed say?)

                                                                                          

Where’s the Beef?

A horse is a horse of course of course

Unless it’s a Findus Lasagne of course

It’s not always a steady course

Talk to those misled.

‘Meat is murder’ sang the Smiths

Meat is 29% according to Aldi

So should you feel 71% less guilty

Like that smug vegetarian?

Who can look Dobbin in the eye?

Enjoying the view from the moral high ground

As lesser mortals they decry?

Will you remain a demi-vegetarian by proxy,

Or are you game for something foxy?

When price drives demand roadkill

To keep down that weekly food bill

And Heston’s produced a tasty badger roulade

As an alternative to the remains of a knacker’s yard

With prickly hedgehog fool for dessert

Or will the deceit of your receipt

 Incite you to put your money where your mouth is

In favour of farm-fresh, free-range, organic, well-bred breast-fed, university-educated rare-breed animals

You’ve known since they were hatched and on first name terms

Paying the price for food to be what it says on the can

Reading between the labels, we should delete this food spam

Let’s send the kebab van packing and the burger too

Say no to hors for our h'ouevre

Demand the truth about marscapone

Drink milk from the UK not the Ukraine

And support British farmers and fishermen again. 

 ©LS King 2013

Rebel

Guilt

I’m a failure as a woman – I don’t hate myself like I should

I don’t wish I looked like someone else, I quite like my food.

I don’t flaunt myself in skimpy tops and crops and then bemoan

The quality of male life I attract is akin to that beneath a stone!

I have confidence my body clock won't detonate if I don't reproduce

I don't mind getting older as long as I don’t resemble a moose.

I'm a failure as a woman - I don't agonise about my weight

I don't regard the currents of my exes with red-misted hate

I'm a failure as a woman – I don’t read our magazines

That pose as our friends while undermining our self-esteems

Telling us what to think, do, fear and wear this season.

I choose sanity, free-thinking individuality and reason.

I’m a failure as a woman – just don’t conform to the norm

Though I do have a hang-up about my lack of insecurities...

©LS King 2012

The Poet Laura-eate's Philosophy of Driving

Driving To Impress

Driving should be like ballet dancing
No junction slaloms, no jerks, no jarring
Just skill and grace with assertive pace
There's no room for road rage on the highway
By the immature ego which can't get its own way
If I had my way all ego would be left at home posturing
In front of a mirror until finally maturing.
And as for those who get a kick
Out of forcing other drivers to be psychic
With their treatment of indicators as an optional extra
Don't they realise they're holding up their own Vauxhall Vectra,
With the extra time it takes to anticipate their actions
In time to prepare appropriate defensive reactions?
Driving should be like ballet dancing
No junction slaloms, no jerks, no jarring
No crunch of gears, no screech of brakes
No crunch of cyclist or other road user makes.
Keep those sweeps fluid-smooth and hug those bends
And when you reach a junction, stop and look at the end!
Your car will thank you with lower garage bills
If you haven't contributed by mis-use to its ills
Ditto insurance premiums and other fetters on driver freedoms.
'Cos what goes aroundabout, comes aroundabout
And that's what it's all about.
So take pride in your driving, enjoy guaranteed arriving
Be nice to other drivers. Be a knight of the road
Nobody likes, admires (or wants to shag) a Mr Toad.

© LS King 2010

Best in Class (or possibly not)

Tomorrow's Prime Ministers

Slack-hipped in slouch jeans, they waddle across the road as if they haven't a care
Contemptuous bovine stare for any motorist who might dare
To urge them to hurry their pace or perhaps deign to look before they cross.
It's as if the Green Cross Code Man never was, as if they don't give a toss
For their own lives or yours, even without substances filled,
Kamikaze cyclists whizz past just as badly in need of Highway Code drilled.
Yesterday I affixed a student chaser to my front grille
To avoid another garage bill
When I got home I found a brace of students neatly scooped
Which I will hang until gamey and tasting of goose.

LS King 2010


Rather worryingly I have seen increasing numbers of older people seemingly just as blase about their health and safety and regarding cars rather as a ruminent might if one entered its field.

'Mirrie'

I have just returned from a parental visit to Northern Ireland, where access to the internet has been very sporadic indeed and half the £1-for-10-minutes public terminals don't work. To amuse myself amidst the dispiriting chaos of my parents' home and lives in which no one is allowed to intervene except for washing up and sharing the driving, I tracked down the family photos, which had rather shockingly been consigned to rot in a broken 30s suitcase in an outhouse, many stuck together or ruined by mould and both maternal and paternal families mixed up to the extent that if there was someone we couldn't identify, they could not even be narrowed down to which side they might be from. Very few were labelled. Luckily 'Mirrie' survived.

'Mirrie' was the glamour girl of my paternal grandmother's family who could have almost been a 30s film star, but became a doomed air hostess instead. Gold-watch deserving readers of this blog may recall the narrative poem I wrote about her here At the time I had no photographs to go with it, so it is nice to put some up at last.

I learned that she was the daughter of Walter and Miriam Gunn. Walter served in WWI and was an ARP warden in WWII, before rising in civvy street to become Manager of Pearl Assurance in Broadgate, Coventry. After their daughter Mirrie was killed in a plane crash - I'm assuming sometime in the 1940s since she evidently lived to be a Wren in WWII, her parents left Coventry to assuage their great grief by running an antiques shop in Brighton, their daughter's belongings locked in the attic having been sent back from the African Cape where she died.

The battered old familial bible states Walter Gunn's date of birth as 12th January 1894, so I will endeavour to order a copy of his death certificate and see if I can dig up some more family information. Unfortunately anyone who might have known the family is likely to be dead and my father has never taken much interest in his family, even before the onset of dementia.

Like Steerforth at Age of Uncertainty, I always think it compounds the tragedy of human loss when that person is entirely forgotten down to the last photograph being disposed of or carelessly allowed to moulder out of existence. Whilst I don't kid myself any of my ancesters had an easy time of it, there is a charm about old photographs and the lost grace and sense of Britishness they portray. Few photographs taken today are likely to be as evocative. In fact I regard old family photographs as the nearest thing to family silver.

Everyone Wants A Relationship With Me

Apparently customer service managers in banks are now known as Customer Relationship Managers. Conversely it's getting harder to google products and services without being required to 'register' on every website - a surefire way of scaring this potential customer away, unless the product is truly unavailable anywhere else (having first ruled out locally, in real life).
Which got me to thinking, how come the semantics get fancier and the customer commitment demanded gets higher as the service gets worse?

Shopping Around

I don’t want a relationship with my car insurer
I don’t want a relationship with my car rescuer
I don’t want a relationship with my zero interest bank
I don’t want a relationship with my patchy reception mobile phone company
I don’t want a relationship with my 1.5mbps home internet provider
I don’t want a relationship with my council tax department, gas provider or electricity supplier
I don’t want a relationship with my local supermarket
I don’t want a relationship with the company currently doing the best price
on Canon printer inks
I don’t want a relationship with the local Police
Or the fashion emporium I ordered one ill-fitting bra from five years ago.
I don't want a relationship with all the companies I've NEVER bought anything from, who won't take 'Unsubscribe' for an answer.
I particularly don’t want a relationship with the Union which sold me down the river when I was made redundant, but who won’t accept that our relationship is over.
A pox on your endless unsolicited newsletters lovingly e-mailed and mailed to me
Your advertising incontinence spilling out of magazines, leaving only glossy covers
And your multi-ways spreading my intimate details to all and sundry on the net, despite my wishes, the Data Protection Act, rampant identity theft and an imploding environment of mailshot waste.
Just call me a commitmentphobe
Though you’ve got to admit, the sex is pretty rubbish too,
And you’re always cheating on me with new customers
Showering them with all your gifts and favours, though here's news for you
For I've started cheating on you too
When you can't keep me satisfied
And my loyalty is rewarded with contempt in your eyes
I surf for new consumer partners who might add value and adore
And give me the customer servicing that has me coming back for more
For shopping is voting and I'm getting cannier who I elect
When I select.
One day, I'm hoping there will be wedding bells
When I find the company who offers lifelong heaven without any added hell
Meantime I think my local MP wants to sever his relationship with me
Making him work so hard on my behalf for his salary.

©LS King 2010

Let Them Eat Leaves

The Hungry Caterpillar

Fourteen days from larvae to caterpillar
Then I ate and I ate 'til I was a fatterpillar
I ate and I ate 'til I began to pupate
Becoming a butterfly would be worth the wait
Not to mention save a fortune in fur and Jimmy Choos
I was ready for my time in the sun, ready to hit the news
But first, I was trapped in a chrysalis!
Waiting for my supermodel miracle catalyst
Suppose my shell refused to shed
Suppose a sparrow ate me for a mcsnack instead
Or I became a mutant ninja caterpillar with a caterpillar track
How could I take the cat(erpillar) walk by storm with that?
Luckily I emerged and my wings unfurled to reveal…a Red Admirable
The Royalty of the flutterby world
So it's rose petal red carpets all the way
Heading the butterfly parade at the break of each day
The sweetest nectar, the most potent pollen
I almost binged 'til I was swollen
Before remembering I was the supermodel of stick-insect kind
And snorting sherbet instead.

©LS King 2009

This was my contribution to an open air reading with Back Room Poets in Oxford's Botanic Gardens today on the theme of The Hungry Caterpillar. As you can see I am a poet in crysalis. Who knows what I will hatch into. If only I hadn't ate all that cake instead of boring leaves...

Pretending To Be Scottish

Last night I performed at a rather fun gig at Whitechapel Art Gallery, presided over by bitingly satirical Scottish poet friend Elvis McGonagall, (now a regular on Radio 4's Saturday Live).

The theme was Kilts, Caravans & Cookery and we all had to wear something tartan. Some very strange approximations abounded and a good-natured Clash of the Tartans ensued!

Which reminded me of the strange phenomenon that happens whenever one goes to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and which inspired me to pen the following poetic monologue (print version beneath podcast for those without speakers).




Pretending to be Scottish

It starts innocuously enough, usually on day three of the Edinburgh Fringe
You're traipsing down the rain-reflective cobbles of the Royal Mile
For a traditional Scottish lunch of
vegetarian haggis, neeps and tatties at World's End
And you pass a knitwear shop
Selling jumpers five sheep thick
And suddenly you want one
No matter that the weather in England
Is never quite that polar and it's £200 quid
Then you see bolts of clan tartan for sale
And it looks quite nice
A piper on a corner pumps up a mournful dirge
And rather than flee the bag of cats being strangled
You are assailed by a wave of emotion, strangely nostalgic
For your adopted homeland
All normal thoughts of violence translated into a donation of 50p.
Day four. An unexpected obsession with Rabbie Burns
Prompts a lingering visit to your idol's museum
And a rash investment in his entire works, never opened.
You nearly buy a ticket for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, but wait until the feeling passes, usually 10 minutes along the mile long queue.
By day five, the cod Edinburgh accent has manifested
The locals are staring, the drunks no longer tapping you up and shirtless performers cease thrusting endless flyers in your hand.
Or could it be that you're carrying that caber in your sporran the wrong way round?
Och aye the noo, it's time to go home.

© LS King 2009

Press to Print

Next week I have been invited to do a poetry reading at an art gallery on the theme of the history of communication. This piece came to mind as a possible.




Hostile Correspondence

My grandmother's bingo pal was easy to frighten
Possessing an absolute fear of anything type-written.
Only officialdom typed letters and they was never good news.
The powers-that-be, authority, they all had control over Dilys.
From the Gas Board with their cut-offs to them that ran things
And she'd never forget those three wartime telegrams
Even if Dilys had read better, understood more than the gist of each letter
Handwritten meant friendly, usually family. Type-written just upset her.
Sometimes she stared for days before opening at arm's length,
Dropping typeface to the floor to read from a safe distance.
Test results from the doctor went unopened for ten months
Resulting in more typeface in local paper announcements.
Now there's Times New Roman italic on her headstone
And my grandmother goes to bingo alone.

© LS King

Crime & Corporate Punishment

Behold - my first Poet Laura-eate podcast (with a bit of movie-software cheating thrown in!) Every embeddable MP3 player seemed to come with its own multi-media content pre-installed. By someone else. Or didn't allow an image, or turned its nose up at Blogger. Amazing how much of your life you can waste trying to get to grips with these things and finding yourself up one dead-end alley after another. To think I had delusional visions of setting up my own blog radio station with broadcasts each week to try out short stories, interviews and comedy etc. However that might have to wait for reincarnation...well certainly until I find a new job anyway (the other saga that is taking up most of my headspace).



When not trying to learn podcasting/applying for jobs, I've been indulging in a documentary-watching phase, notably 'Enron - The Smartest Guys in The Room', 'Wal-Mart' The High Cost of Low Price and my favourite 'The Corporation' - the extraordinary story of the birth and rise of the Corporation, an entity which shares the same rights in law as a human being, but apparently the same psychological profile as a psychopath! Here is a promo clip. The film itself is nearly 3 hours long but is one of those films you come away evangelising that everyone and their dog should watch.



In the Wal-Mart DVD there is a chilling scene where a former regional manager in charge of expansion relates how he used to drive through small towns betting to himself 'six months', 'four months', 'a year at the outside' as he drove past the often family-run for decades high street retailers, psyching out the town in readiness for the next grand Wal-Mart opening. So obvious really, yet it seems to me we Brits have been remarkably slow to catch on to the fact that the more we shop at the large out-of-town hypermarkets the more our towns and cities will implode, and even that there might be a deliberate corporate plan to destroy our towns and cities, eventually making us wholly reliant on the likes of Wal-Mart and internet shopping (something I personally only resort to if I cannot buy what I seek locally). In Oxford this week I treated myself to a discounted bracelet at one of our few remaining independent boutiques, only to have him confide in me that he might be closing down after 25 years. How did we let things come to this? At the end of the Enron film, a scandal I never quite understood at the time; but can scarcely believe the scale of after watching the film; this Tom Waits track played out to the closing credits. Ten years old now, yet a song not only for our times but strangely apt for the crash of 1929 too.