Against Systems, This

                                        “one hard note against happiness”—Joel LongAutumn lunchtime

Office workers

Beside a brick wall

What

Spell

Ing

Test

Rhythm

This shaking

Something

Like wrecking ball

Like tattoos that tick

Time bombs

Until you return

Revised

Calm

Constellations

Hidden

In school rooms

Finally brass

Blowing let’s kick

Some assets

Felonize the bass

Against commerce

These rhymes

Sings

Land mines

Of Pantomime

Pressed against

Police barriers

Against barbed wire

This is the opposite

Of hired

For minimum wage

This is love

To quilt

Blue robed

Oblivion

Against systems

Kitchen pans

Her hands

Hearing

“one hard note

against happiness”

And then the window

Pane



Against this alone

Room

This bare bulbed

Gloom

Turn every unpaid bill

Into an error    

A dropped fly

In the stadium

Of
Could change.