Through a Glass Half Full

There you go again…
Wading in against the throng of somnambulant crowds
hand-painting silver linings on photocopied clouds
tongue tip protruding like you’re thinking aloud

unmindful of the clues that escape from your notebook
swept away screaming from the mind’s barbed fishing-hook
and dumped in the corner far from your optimist outlook

Doodling in that notebook; telephone crooked shoulder to ear
Listening unhearing to your mother advise cajole and career
Pencil tip scratching out a chiaroscuro floral tear

You lick your lips to whistle an uplifting tune
Perhaps taking your medicine a little too soon
And find yourself breathing dust from the melancholy moon

Dues to be paid in pounds of flesh fresh
Penitent skin to be flayed with wire mesh

Homage to be made to the oracle of silence
Fees to be gathered to provide for the licence

Franchise me; feed me; fill me with fear
Take me to the forum where the experts leer

Through trick hoops aflame and beds a-nail
Smeared in amber grease and essence of snail

Battered and seasoned fried in extra virgin oil
From bent back questioning a poor man’s toil

Through fields fallow with sodden seeds sadly afloat
Across that cold and exclusive intellectual moat

That circles your heart with crocodile crying
Predatory reinforcements now the cavalry’s dying

the never dependable General Custer’s good looks
Have been cut from the pages of history’s books

So you take a deep breath of fetid green air
Arrange your floral hem and descend the glass stair

To the ballroom below where the carnivores wait
…to strip that silver lining from the edge of your plate.

February 2007