Sad Desk Lunch
lunatic poet in slick loafers
eats a sad desk lunch while all
the beautiful words are dying
hunches over in a dim cubicle
gobbles up a cold container
of leftover pappardelle pasta
tuning out dust-bowl ballads
wafting through the window
the old FM radio blaring from
cheap cars hopping potholes
on the sullen city streets below
cranky, old-fashioned compared
to the nouveau hip literary kids
would take a cup of simmering
soup to venturing out mutually
blue devils settle in bone deep
no one spends time on a clock
without all passion parts at risk
of burning out of their brilliance
lunatic poet besotted w/ industry
fails to evoke smelloftheworld
held tight in blanketed wasteland
of fat file folders microwave meals
long performance analysis reports
jangling telephone calls data entry
& not the creative linguistic variety
it thieves: frippery take-home pay
it deceives: the old nine to five
rattles rudely through artist flesh
like a purposeful pillaging plague
arresting dreams of grape arbors
fresh linens creative retreating into
thin volumes of loquacious poems
varied survival – there’s the catch.
**
It’s National Poetry day in the UK. I’ve been having a
heck of a week in terms of life getting me down, work kicking my ass, gnats
getting under my skin. It was time to bash something out. A ditty. A poem. I’m
still scowling. Still stewing. But a little less. Because words.
Long weekend ahead. Just one more slave day. Then sleep
in. Then turkey. Peace.
In propinquity,
Nic
