Headpain
This is not a headache.
This is headpain.
They have taken over my skull
And are converting it to be
A windowless government office
For some shady set of letters
That will never form a poem.
Grinding down the plaster reliefs
And painting the flatness grey,
Replacing the leaded windowpanes
With A.C. units that will not work,
Only rattle and drip black water.
Silky walnut chaises
Transmute to desks of steel
with sideways leaning chairs
And drawers that stick shut.
There is no air in here!
The cheap fluorescent lights
Flicker subliminally
Messages of malice, in Morse
(Which I never learned to read).
Fat sullen workmen pound
Zinc nails into dry-rotted walls
So the head spooks can hang
Blurry watercolors by someone’s
Second cousin, twice removed,
Instead of rainbowed oils
By some subversive.
In the basement someone screams
And the typing pool shrug listlessly
Knowing another report is due
On the interrogation of my dreams.
B.T. Murtagh
Nice!