Bad Critter

I crawled through the curtain
of the house of correction, uncertain
whether to try my hand
in the beginners or the experienced section -
to hang out with the acute or the chronic?
I found a chair in the bar and sat on it,
for the lounge looked expensive and exacting;
still a man can’t help find himself asking
what the neighbours are talking about.

There’s a process of natural selection
for all servers of the sentence.
It can feel like you’ve been here a century,
though that’s just a trick of the memory.
Evolution awaits eventually:
full attendance to the lessons
and I’m a grammar school pedant,
syntax collector and metre inspector
giving advice to make others better

until it isn’t a love-in
but more of a loathing
for all the sugar- coated diagnoses,
the honeyed phrases and practised poses,
the weighted words I’m bent on throwing
this knife that hides beneath the clothing.







Poetry by Ray Miller
Read 76 times
Written on 2026-02-09 at 09:46

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