Kristen de Kline #96 bureaucratic slime

“There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem”
Gore Vidal 

Did the revolution evaporate     like Kafka predicted
leaving behind
the slime of a
new
bureaucracy

did they leave you in charge toothless tiger
embalming staff in regulations rules procedures
what were they thinking
juggling two hundred metre edicts yellow measuring tapes bureaucratic fluids
slime
     slime
           slime

hard-bound books from the 1970s
pause    in the locked glass cabinet
authors' mugshots stare out    puzzled
sepia saturated:    how did we end up here
how did we grow     so old
the PA admits she's mis-placed the key
could be      anywhere

go ahead toothless tiger     blow your whistle     make your 000 call
everybody knows the whole Department’s flat-lined     your husband ran off
a poet from Lawless Way shadows your every move    the new bureaucracy
they're calling it sublime     slime  

you say it's like falling
in reverse
slime even has the same letters as smile
but don't get me wrong
the regimes share
nothing   except things
mis-placed
lost

some days the Gods     fight back
at the tops of mountains and clouds
stray words linger     throwaway lines pause
sentences like
grenades     poems like
bullets     a glimmer of possibility
a train carriage glowing in the darkest night
some days the Gods
speed past     above our heads like
missiles flying by     caught
in cross fire
some days the Gods     smile

go ahead toothless tiger blow your whistle make your 000 call bring out the measuring tape snarling canines encyclopedia rules regulations rabbits out of a suit sleeve doves flapping from a top hat go ahead wave your Magician's Wand watch us disappear here disappear there watch us demolish you in poems tracing letters in freshly slabs of concrete:
slime     slime     slime