Why waste the glorious springtime in resentment
Rehearsing the explanations that would fill the speeches
That should have been delivered yesterday
Or a thousand years ago
The springs on the clothespins are weaker than they used to be
Manufacturers use half the metal and it still looks like a clothespin
But springy clothespins hadn’t been invented in the eleventh century
So let’s spread our damp laundry on the hedges to dry
But there are no hedges in these parts
Except the decorative ones useless to keep out a fox
But useful perhaps for concealing a security camera

A young woman received a prize
For her contribution to the panopticon
For how else would we have known
Of the police department’s belligerent disposition
Toward the members of the community
But it doesn’t take a smartphone to know
That the world is driven by survival of the vicious
To have their profit to have their prey
Not individual players mind you
Just the universal truth that living long means
Somebody else is dying soon
Living fat means somebody suffers
The murderer’s claim he had no choice
But to crush the life out of one who lived

And which of the sins is the unforgivable one
Keeping in mind that sin means
Not wrongdoing only but giving offense
Like all my neighbors I live in a palace
Which like all palaces traces its antecedents to fortress
Security the handmaiden of luxury
There’s a kind of gun equally useful in battle and at home
So why do I feel so insecure
Why not forget the past
And better yet forget the future
And hear the cardinal’s two-note pronouncement
And see the clover’s irrepressible carpet
Or should I mow it down