In the Soup

Derisively regarding me as if (again!) they couldn’t fathom

why I’ve done what I have done to what sustains the waning

entity of me, my lumbering triumvirate of guardians,

my ruling oligarchy who arrive just when the year gets cold

to school the arrant fool I always seem to be, now barged

into the calm confines of predawn dream to steam in more

than usual disgruntlement. As customarily, one napped

(I guessed it was his turn) – though come to think, it always

seems to be the pink one who’s asleep – I’ve never heard him

speak. However, the remaining two large yellow piles of fellow

always do. They intoned together like an angry chorus:

“This time you have really sprung a leak.” I had succumbed,

they’d come to tell me, to the most egregious pride of all:

the ontological!  “Shmoo! What in hell’s got into you?

You stride around as if you’d found the answer to the test –

like you’re as clear as consommé. But you’re as thick

as bouillabaisse.” I was in the soup. They’d never made

the case against me so abrupt. It even woke the pink one up.


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