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?