O USELESS SIGN

By Russell McGilton

O sign , O sign

O how I don’t understand thee,

Swinging you were, fresh from

Callused hands,

Ye message bore little importance

To yon merry crowds,

But O’ it confused me –

“Park bench taken for repairs”?

And aye, the evidence baffled

Me.

Four loose holes gaping for their

Lost mother.

O foundations of no glory,

Did ye think some fat-bottomed

Woman would sit on that missing

Throne and impale herself upon thee?

O what useless sign!

What bright spock had shined

Your ingenuity?

Had doth he a mind of melting

Wax ,

All soft and malleable

And easily burnt with the

Light of his dull wick?

Twas he not a bored simpleton,

Put to better days of making

Useless signs?

O useless sign!, O useless sign!

O ye be a waste of

Good coin,

And light wallet of poor

Taxpayer folk.

Had ye not eyes!

If blind as bat couldst thou

Not notice that a chair

Had lived there once by

Passing through it?

“Park bench taken for repairs”?!

O damnable, stupid sign !

Have ye lain to rest

Scholarly debates of what

Became of the chair that was,

And now is not there?

Had thoust cured

Insomniacs of their worried

Thoughts of what became of

Thee?

O wretched, contemptible,

Offensive sign!

There!

My Doc Martin

Has cleft ye in twain.

Let ye on author know

Thy damage.

Come, O useless sign

Come,

To the river ye

be,

Where the fishes will make more

Sense of your wasted

Energy.

In your place I’ll be

The trickster

With my own message;

“SIGN TAKEN FOR REPAIRS”

Tis fitting, eh?