The Things They Talk About Instead

"Wrecked is the ship of Pearl
and every chambered cell..."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus

the things they talk about instead

could madden even seraphim

the livelong day, on office breaks

or on the train.

the things they think

while continents of clouds

shift over them.

and in the nightingale hollows still

there is warbling, bittersweet

of who, oh who
will these technocracies appease
when all reality swirls into a screen?

 drop by drop the honey distills

the crimsoned trees unleaf and

still they gripe, they curse, and snipe

bedgrudge each other

for the clothes they wear
each owning imperially (they dream)the right to be right

the cars they drive

the mansions each one trendier

than the last with an inclusive emptiness.

still, fleeting are their gated worlds

though parquet floored in the vestibules

with all the amenities, golden fauceted.

oh you may knock on the rarest of woods

or on the noggin of Pinnochio

going forward into the wilderness

with your 5 year goals, your

concert interview readiness not to hear the music ever-

only to be seen against no proprietary backdrop of The End:

of rainbows plunging

violet-first, into the Sea...

mary angela douglas 3 january 2015