I'm very much not happy with the initial draft of this poem. I wanted to try my hand at a "Martian poem" (a school of poetry named after Craig Raine's A Martian Writes A Postcard Home poem, but the first draft fails on so many levels!
I'm not sure this draft progresses me much further on my quest, but it was fun to write - which is the main thing to keep in mind when composing verse ...
The cell as a form of inspiration
(An alternative title could be The office cubicle as a form of inspiration)
These angularities that pin me in
are pinned with cloth of woven mauve and I
must pin instructions here. The plastic rails
enforce confinements, one to each square cell;
there are no doors. A circle sequence keeps
me close, its arcs and sweeps a sturdy guard.
No doors - an oblong bright in blues and whites
displays an arc of planes, each green and shaped
identically from some machine within
its pole. They wave at me: look how we break
from shells! Look how we swing in puffs and scuffs
of molecules that buff us, stroke our dance!
No doors - I hate the dance of shapes across
instructions pinned by me to my mauve cloth.
They say: translate us while the arc sweeps low.
I bow my head and worship; fingers pray
across the coded blocks that bounce and click -
my alchemies dissect some thoughts and pin
them on a screen that feels like silk when stroked.
As sigils grow in rows I meld, become
the incantation. Between the pulpy flats
that hide my desk a cupid stalks, its jaws
are primed to stab results together, sense
from nonsense - still the fingers sweep their arc
across their sequenced numbers. Still I pray
and my release remains a sentence away.
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