Fleecy Features (The Cardigan Man)

The cardigan man

His cardy has smiley faces.
Chevrons of his authority,
They smirk superiority.

He's the King, the Boss.

He knows the way he dresses
Digresses the Code on Dress.
But he has no fear of a dressing-down,
He could be dressed in a dressing-gown.

He doesn't give a toss.

In pin-striped straight-jacket,
I know my lowly place.
I have no knitwear top,
No smiley face.

The overhead projector hums
In the silent vacuum
That's my anticipation.

His saucer eyes stare a while
At the polystyrene ceiling tiles.
They've squared too many circles,
Too often thought outside the box.
Used the key of change
To unlock too many locks.

Now the hungry manager seeks
A meaty, management-speak
Analogy.
The sort that a mere managee,
A morsel of a mortal like me,
Could not possibly see.

Only a cardigan man can.

His waxy brow,
A beach at low tide,
Slopes gently
To a distant line of wispy white.
He opens his mouth,
A self-important feline yawn.
Is it a storm of creative awakening
Which now furrows the sand?
I watch in awe,
Waiting for words to be born.

'We begin the journey at the indiscernable end of the critical
path.'
The destitute progeny
Seek shelter
From a tempest of indifference.

'The change protocol design-template is a big
elephant&;#8230;.'.
Orphans
On a voyage
With no destination.

'&;#8230;which we're eating with a knife and fork.'
They plead
For refuge
In my ears.

'And we don't know whether we're chewing on the tail or the
trunk.'
But my mind
Was long ago
Driven to a far off world.

'In layman's language&;#8230;'.
If I could turn him
Upside-down
I could make his smiley faces frown.

'&;#8230;have you on-boarded the major milestones on the route
plan?'
Homeless and with no purpose
The abandoned souls drift like drunks
Through the security-grilled windows.
They fall on the deaf ears of the world outside.

'Roy, facilitate the feed-back, would you.'

But like the fleecy features
Of the silly grinning creatures
On the cardigan man's buttoned wool,
My eyes are closed.