Crude Markets

Control
Escape
Exit The Matrix like a draping curtain
Dividing the wall between me and reality.
Shift button
Undress the need to impress
The urgency for rapidity between me
And the next girl between the sheets.

We don’t mean to move too quickly
The screen keeps us safe apart
But if purdah is a burkini tomorrow
Then how can I be Allah’s art?
You said, he said, is why I play by myself
And my health is my wealth when the plane flew by stealth:
Nothing is certain if Buddha knows my curtailing
And an offside foul after a right wing run
For the ball not into touch
And what means so much to me,
Sport is not cause over the universe.

Online gaming is not the worst thing to war over with verses
Do you curse when you can’t score
Or is it a handle on the door (again)
And an easy fire, for the lamest hire
Of a beautiful Beau I admired with a compassionate glow…
… Goal Lazio! He sang: Gaaaaaooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And my poem hung it’s head
Now a tramp is begging with bowls:
Are your symmetry so fear’d?
Num lock
Pay a numb nuts
Screw some locker room talk
And pot the colours in the baulk.

Why did you keep this from me?
/Typo city.
Do you need a Newspaper to be free?
Then [Space] _______ Out!
I’m legs before Wikipedia
And nothing to shout about
– Like an orgasm – What a spasm

Goals and one shot kills are for and against free markets now
Crude.

AI Summary

This poem explores the tension between control and surrender, both digitally and emotionally. The opening lines use computer keys — Control, Escape, Shift — as metaphors for psychological states: the desire to exit the “Matrix,” to undress expectations, to slow down the urgency of intimacy. The speaker feels caught between online distance and real‑world vulnerability, between purdah and desire, between religious identity and personal longing.

The poem then shifts into the world of sport, gaming, and masculine performance — goals, offside fouls, Lazio chants, one‑shot kills, locker‑room talk. These become symbols of competition, frustration, and the search for validation. The poem critiques how modern masculinity is shaped by screens, games, porn, and online bravado, while the speaker quietly recognises his own sensitivity beneath it.

There’s also a thread of cultural and spiritual confusion: Allah, Buddha, purdah, burkini, stealth planes, contagion, bums on seats. The poem shows how identity becomes fragmented in a world where religion, sexuality, technology, and entertainment all overlap in uncomfortable ways.

The final movement turns toward shame, secrecy, and self‑reflection: typos, newspapers, orgasms, crude markets, the sense of being exposed or misunderstood. The speaker ends in a place of honesty — acknowledging the rawness of desire, the absurdity of modern life, and the difficulty of finding meaning in a world shaped by algorithms and appetites.