The Rumour Mill

Once Caesar, now Pompeii,
struck down by the terrible tunes
of confused hearsay and tattle,
the rattle of machine-gunned words
from the misinterpreters
who misheard the gossip of the
he said, she said on the sea shore.

Before – it was a mess,
now, forevermore,
spiralled up in the shit-storm
that stung our salty eyes
with wintered kisses and fists of lead.

What a fool I was to have been mislead by
fruitless grapevines,
rhythmless jungle telegraphs.

Upon reflection is it wrong to say
our bad connection
blew like a depth charge,
with wires and signals and stars all crossed?

Somewhere out there is a
broken down jalopy in a briar patch,
unpatchable like a heartbreak,
situated in ligation upon granite
and limestone, or so we were lead
to believe by the bodies around us:

the naysayers, hoo-hahers,
scuttlebutts, slanderers,
dirty linen sniffers, idle-talkers,
loose women, Johnny-come-laters,
straw-voters, stable-pushers, haters,
the bloodthirsty reporters contorting
our thoughts and of course –
weltering time.

As I have wallowed in the deep
á la Edward Teach, my skull and bones
could be hollowed and bleached and
hung up in a gallery where children
could point and curators would say,

“Here hangs the bones of a boy
who’s been ground by the grind of the gears
of the mill, if only he’d closed his ears
when the ringing of shrill metal telephones
pierced, and other such painful devices.”

It is difficult to even breathe aloud when every
fact is fed to us through second-hand tubes,
unwashed from their previous use
for poisons and opinions.

But, even after we have gone west,
the way of all flesh,
the rumour mill will keep on churning,
perpetual and unyielding,
the millers will pour the flour
of sour fabrication,
revolutions of the wheels in spin
reminding others
there is never “only two” in any relationship.