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
Written on 2026-02-09 at 09:46

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