Sign Language

This piece was published in the November 2007 addition of 'A Fine Line'; the Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society. I wrote it last year whilst at Uni, feeling rather miserable and caged in especially thanks to the surplus ammounts of "do not" this and "please put" that signs in every corner that my eyes searched for some solace. None came sadly, but this poem did.

Sign Language

The sign reads
'Please Put Your Rubbish in the Bin'
-as if there could be
no gretaer sin
than a Snickers wrapper
which was not put in a bin.
Another wall yells
'No Smoking' here
so that every man
shal fear
the toxic cloud
drawing near;
the nicotine bomb can't go off here
where perfect people dine
and drink red wine
and carelessly chat
of their jobs and lives and
'Did you hear the news?
They're sending away more troops,
Oh! Darling...are those new shoes?'