Detention

 

Detention

 

If you wish, you can grasp it,

it is, after all, entirely understandable,

since the wizards in their wisdom,

pointed convex lenses at the sky,

and a proclamation, raised high,

claims we are tossed back to 1975,

or somewhere give or take a chance,

like thar last dance in Mama Mia,

they’re wanting anywhere but here.

 

Who’s this? Head on desk,

avoiding eye contact, here’s him

that hands slips to those who sin,

like parking tickets - they fill them in,

when banged up in detention.

 

Of course, it’s well known hereabouts,

after his issued screams and shouts

have shrieked final echoes,

he slopes off to get his head down,

keeps silent class with manly scowl,

while filling in the spreadsheets.

 

But, you know, they swallowed rats

who gnaw and gnaw at empty bellies,

bring lack of sleep and counting sheep,

come to lessons, try to sleep,

my, my, someone fetch a priest.

 

Donning his pleasant crescent black-cap,

lent by bleaters from tall white towers,

with an edict to prune the wildflowers

bring order to the house,

bound for chair, grim fiend with mouse

and knitted brows of fury:

he’ll bring you verdicts, judge and jury.

Baselines

Baselines

 

Let your fingers do the walking;

let the music do the talking;

somebody more gifted than me might say.

And look -  here’s one busy with her pen:

more likely using an artificial aid,

to mimic music once played,

because ink is effort, it’s styli passed

like sharpened needles made of brass

to play acetate at 78,

and manuscript in beautiful, cursive swirls

no longer pulls your boys or girls.

Her notes transposed, all lines, all numbers,

you’re wondering why there, not here,

as if there’s ways to do, ways to go,

she’s proper nodding like she knows

how clefs are trapped in corners,

to turn base metal into performers,

using geometry, right-angled rulers

while tsetses snap and bite at necks.

Ah, give it a rest, we’ll dance instead,

let’s figure the thing out by ear,

let our digits push and place

where they will, hitting strings with calluses,

scales and balances,

And raise our pitch a step or two,

with fingers that know what to do.

Moon

 

Moon

 

Since sun set, hostility whispered

after the moon had uttered words

through her pale crescent mouth.

Her slither of slight lemon peel

shavings afloat on water, not gin,

is a mocked up plan view of a grin,

side on, askant and distant skewed.

Cross shopfronts slam iron cages

from words she passes down ages

while all faithful turn her pages.

We, pressing our slimming fingers

against fishbowl display cases,

see cakes decaying and cannot last,

for she is waxing ere she’s waning;

they will not see this month out.

As time long lingers, she’s gazing

far across her moonlit pastel seas,

denies she’s delighting in disease

where all her just wars are raging.