Infractions Rained Down Tears

[to e.e. cummings-

and with love and sorrow for all those punished unjustly]

infractions rained down tears

and flooded the unimportant streets

the ones that never got ploughed

when it snowed-

infractions

stayed up all night

with knotted stomachs, little sleep

on the eve of evaluations

already misconstrued;

they slept, if they did,

under bridges, trees, light poles,

were blamed for warehouse fires;

moonstruck in the Tower

pacing the executed hours;

unnerved in the roundhouse,

alive for the switch;

tackled by the bait

and waiting in thin jackets

in the cold for salty soup and

sharpened glances above thin smiles

bestowed bestowed.

of fairytales bereft and

still, kept after school, years later

to be underserved days old peach or apple pie

in the sugary customs of the country

after a blistering lecture for being poor,

not up to par, too easily satisfied, and late

and late again for

the punishing games everywhere in force they-

were taken out with the trash;

married, had children in the rubble

of no one's- ever -song, who were sent to

school to learn from early, on-

all they hadn't done wrong

they must stand in the corners for

and dream about in their dreams

especially on Christmas vacations.

"infractions infractions infractions..."

they wept into small hands and said

oh, I am sorry sorry sorry it's my 

birthday again

though who could tell them why

and who would tell it well,

in apple bright blighting-

the reason for the spell they were under

for the orchards they never felled

mary angela douglas 23 august 2014

Note on the poem:  we seem to be growing a penalty laden, condemnation before-the-fact language.  I have personified the word "infractions" here to show that a person subjected to this kind of language can be totally taken over by the constant feeling that they have, are or will be doing something constantly wrong so that the only occupying army left within them is called "Infraction" and even their very identity becomes this "infraction". The one name they call themselves by in their daily, quiet agonies.

The poem reflects the situation when people are needled to death by small flaws faults pointed out by others endlessly on official pieces of paper disguised as policies disguised as simple guidelines, day-glo glowing on eviction notices, this property is condemned bylaws, used to hammer and hammer the points home, the finer points of the way human beings professionally or otherwise are legitimately browbeating each other almost constantly.

It is the language of leases, of training manuals, of hidden directives, of hr handbooks, of  signs on the walls of public  and private institutions.

It grows to the point that it takes up space in the human soul and eats it away, the spare, chill language of hell that unaccountably never melts, once heard, remembered forever, clanging like dissonant bells or sirens in the memory:

the universal language that wants the world to be composed only of wardens and prisoners.

Thank God for the language of kindness, of beauty, of mercies wherever it exists.