Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Nursery Rhyme




she queried where all that 

barbed wire – carnival-ed there – 

stretched fair – where it came from – 

Where? Why, from factories where women

and ogres – though mostly women – sieve    

steel and barbs together, fill them into ill

smelling springs milled at an eye’s level 

frightening fingers like orange tigers 

trill the tine-toy-sharp triangles into 

lobe-slicing, huzz-buzz-whirring, 

thickened liar-black-friar-choir

mechanizations: into barbwire 


installed behind eyebrows

to twitch and acknowledge;

tiny springs – each spring – 

make baby eyebrows bounce

‘Once for the bulbs to sprout’

tattered squirrels pronounce

as tricky to manufacture as

those same tigers juggle tea


leaves us all a-spirograph-ing

with ice-skating-numb-digits

But you wouldn’t know it as

no factory faces give a hint

as 2 how we can control it

& still manage to sew it

and then she awoke to

several repercussions


-Thomas E. Simmons 

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