Black, grey, navy, striped, polyester, silk
Bald patches
lined up in a row
gleaming
beaming in their
triumph over youth
Red tie, blue tie, never a whimsy tie
(to lie in the face of severity, ambition)
hanging limp and impotent
yet virile.
Glasses, round, oval, square, black-rimmed
or hovering precarious and unbound
the chairman leans back in his chair
bobbing like a buoy in the sea of uncertainty
The modeling is volatile;
The assumptions unprecedented
lobbing data carelessly into a pool of statistics
waves of shameless manipulation
Shiny pins on chests, jarring
the
stoic
lines
of smart suits,
holding up the kings’ imaginary clothes.
Agricultural projections, strenuous objections
to the baseline of numbers
the balding heads in bobbing chairs want
alternative numbers
Strong, healthy noses; round, confident, successful noses.
A good nose is the key to success!
leaning back to suppose and ponder
with virile ties and overworked pins
striped suits and reflective glasses
Can they smell out the truth?
olfactory lie detectors sniffing at
data from their perch o’er the tie
Or is the air too thick with indecision
with uncertainty and compromise?
The suited puppets bob behind the dais
affecting curiosity and indignation
alternately
the knots of ties sharing a stage with pins and noses
Pins and Needles—can a man made of
glass and polyester and silk
lose feeling in a limb?
Shift in their bobbing chairs, refocus
their vision and start
over again?
Ah-ha!
they’d say
or
maybe just
ha!
by Jackie
