Opera

Average morning, I trudge your average stairs
down to check the mail that isn't there at the doorstep.
It's Bank Holiday, Jubilee hurrah. Outside the street is dead

but for the deathly rattle like a snake with the neighbours
stuck in it's throat, choking them out. Again and again.
It doesn't work. I look for the source. Three newspaper shards:
Triptych on my lawn.

Ridiculous waddle in the junction from my court
has all the space in the world to seek out their remains.
Neat black, tumbles back. Beak is shut tight.
Currently the chill launches from the windowsill.
I count:

One, but I made my peace long, long ago. I still say Hello
silently, so nobody knows. You're sort-of-comical, beautiful,
maligned. You open your beak. Rattle the screech; release
the ancient chill in me. Why hack at my rationality?
Beautiful, Screech, you seek with your silent cousin -
The court is yours, the dead will yet be risen. Prisoners in their beds and
homes.

Brushwood paper joins its friends, conspires to keep us locked and safe.
Roots from the dismembered hole that Murphy's made:
A clipped reminder that even trees can join the morbid remains.
They wander blandly from the remaining desolate stage -
All the remains, inanimate but for the wind-choked Smarties tube.

But join us here you Pigeon, fat as a Raven but twice as slow.
You make this *Bouffé* when the composer, devoid of riches
decided: Tragedy transmits the desolation that I currently feel.
However, do not settle, enter right and stage left, flanking...

A butterfly lightly lands, the tarmac screams this scene is badly handled.
Director cuts, papers roll, actors flash their Equity cards.
This production could only be on Bank Holiday at 8:15.

The scene tumbles, never to be seen, a rehearsal to
the paperboy whose fat cheeks have exhausted simplicity.

The stage, emptied, is ready for the day to step on.