A F Harrold

The Retailer’s Tale

Before I got into poetry I got out of retail,
but before I got out of retail I ran a hook shop,
providing hooks to pirates,
until we were picketed by a pacifist amputee group – the Harmless Armless –
after which I only stocked safe plain prosthetic hands,
and changed the name of the shop to the Second Hand Shop,
which led to some confusion when horologists started asking
for second hands – that is the smallest subdividing moving markers of a clock or watch face –
so, faced with an issue of supply and demand,
I promptly changed the shop’s name again to the Second Hand And Hand Shop.
I ran a scheme where I bought back people’s prosthetics
as they upgraded to newer smarter models and soon had a big pile of second-hand hands,
but since on the other hand a second-hand second hand is rarely worth very much at all
I only sold them new,
so the shop become the First-Hand Second Hand And Second-Hand Second Hand Shop.
Then the bottom fell out of the hand market and I tried something else.

Moving to the seaside I opened up the Tip Top Flip-Flop Shop
followed by a Fish & Ship Shop, catering for all nautical needs,
and my unique venture in which a white English gentleman promoted urban music:
the Hip Hip! Hip Hop Shop.
When it shut I moved into the Stop Watching The Stop Watch Stop Shop,
a guidance centre for people who couldn’t control the urge
to watch stop watches until they stopped.
Then there was a shop which didn’t sell a lot, but had it very neatly displayed:
the Ship Shape Shop. It went under.
That was followed by a shop that sold the B-Sides to singles which never charted,
the Flip-Side Of The Flop Shop,
and then my ultimate circus emporium, the Non-Stop One Stop Big Top Shop.

After that I moved to Edinburgh
and opened a store selling a children’s playground game,
which was my Scotch Hopscotch Shop.
As a sideline I stocked some home-brewing kits, using only locally sourced products,
and renamed the place the Scotch Hopscotch And Scotch Hops Shop.
I sold Old English Bards in the Scop Shop,
equine footfalls in the Clop Shop,
before moving into Greek jazz with my Bebop Aesop Shop,
limited haircuts in the Flattop Shop,
and an Irish band, ballet gear and a variety of moisture
in the Raindrop/Dewdrop U2 Tutu Shop.

For football referees in a hurry I opened a Whistlestop Whistle Shop,
for Vikings I ran the Longship Shop,
for Admirals the Flagship Shop,
for Archbishops the Worship Shop
and for War Veterans there was always Shell Shop.

For folk who liked to watch small pieces of old hardwood vessels be made smaller still
I ran an Antique Teak Ship Chip Chop Shop.
I sold French children’s stories, a Hannah-Barbera character and certain shaved mammals
in the Bare Bear, Babar, Booboo Shop,
and polarised cans containing parts of a Belgian reporter and a Hollywood dog
in my Tinted Rin Tin Tin Tintin Tin Shop.

If you needed to make animals go away you should have come to my Shoo Shop,
and for very light pastry there was my Choux Shop.

Then there was an Ape Shop, a Cape Shop,
a South American Dictatorship Shop, a Sheep Shop,
and an Everything’s Going Cheep Shop – which sold baby birds in old jokes.

After all that I became a floorwalker in the Grammatical Deportment Department Store:
the ground floor opened onto the shopping centre through a semi-colon and colon colonnade,
the first floor housed the bracket booth and the comma counter,
the second floor supplied cedillas and circumflexes,
alongside the solidus/slash/oblique section, the dot and dash desk
and the tilde till.
If you were willing to wait we could order in an ellipsis.

Eventually lit with literacy, I struck out on my own again
and started to run the Full Stop Shop,
but then I stopped.