My Face from Chromium Dockyard by Gary Le Strange

I lost my face the other day
I don't know where it is, just that it's gone away
I think I left it on a train
A bus or something
Or in the toilet

It's really rubbish with no face
Don't recognise myself
Keep catching glimpses and I think it's someone else
Can't see or hear or smell
Keep banging into things
Keep falling down the stairs and walking into shelves

And so I bought another face
Found on the internet at quite a decent price
But now it's here, I am appalled
What charlatan made this?
I want my money back

It took six weeks to come
And when it did come, it was ripped
So when I put it on, it made me look a twat
And everybody laughed at me
And they pushed me down a hole
And took bets to see who would beat me in a fight

So now I stalk the Earth alone
Not knowing who I am or where to call my home
Like an alien fucktard
In a chromium dockyard

Gonna fling myself into the Thames to see if I will float
Then I'll grab a load of razor blades and cram 'em down me throat
In a weak attempt to wake you up and find out if you care, I bet you don't

My face is like a sparking lump of electric meat
In a plastic box tied to a lamp-post in a suburban street

My face is like the glow of a faded silent film
A Charlie Chaplin one, or that one with the train in it

My face is like a comfort blanket
Soft and warm, and old, and blue and damp and stinking

My face is like a scummy bedsit
With walls of swirling Artex and shelves of Betamax

My face is like an empty car park
Filled with lorries with cars inside them, but cars with no men in

My face is like a failing actor
Who hasn't done a decent day's work since Crossroads finished

My face is like a chronic alcoholic
Who breaks into ASDA and steals all the Famous Grouse from it

My face is like a slippy lino
If you're not careful, you might break your neck on it

My face is like a damp, rotten Tuesday
When all your giro has run out and the milk is mouldy

My face is like an endless queue of Russian crones
All lining up to buy a single potato waffle

My face is like two bulldogs fighting each other
In a deserted factory in Market Harborough

My face looks like a crappy powder painting
Done by a six year old kid with a slimy backwards hand

My face is like the constant beeping of an abandoned Mini Metro
Which keeps me up at night

My face is like a knackered old SCART lead
With all its casing chewed off by the next door neighbour's cat

My face is like a concrete statue
Of a fat Belgian child pissing onto a picture of himself

My face is somewhere – have you seen it?
If you do, call 99999999

I trudged wearily down the dank, musty corridor
To the photocopying machine
Heavily resigned to the uncomfortable truth
That I would never again see my own smile
And would have to wear a cheap photocopy of someone else's

And as I approached the machine
I noticed a mirror hanging from the crumbling wall above it
And as I neared the mirror
The image in its rusty surface began to clear and coalesce

My face
It was on my head all the time

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