Tap, Tap, Tap – Written March 2025 (Aged 50)

Tap, Tap, Tap

Those rustic personality disorders
curdle the milk.

They crouch down
in billets of insecurity,

tap-tap-tap
on levers of solid power,

tap-tap-tap
clutching wild flowers.

I am out there,
and my integrity is no more
than a puffing steam engine
knowing it is travelling
to unknown destinations —

tap-tap-tap,

and I hear that,
I hear that all the time
as rustic personality disorders
suck the life out of wilted carnations —
ones that are pinned to ill-fitting suits,
clinging to cheap tables
and flirting with a fragrant noose.

Tap-tap-tap —
it is the sound of an undisputed ladle.

Tap-tap-tap goes the cry
as they rock an emotionally laden cradle.

Rustic personality disorders
fly freely in the clouds and corridors
of ill-gotten power.

Tap-tap-tap —
they hand out the school milk,
and we notice it is curdled
and that it has turned sour.

James Garratt – March 2025

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https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/2020/01/08/the-boy-behind-the-glasses-an-introduction/

More poems from 2025
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/poems-and-writing-2025/