The Ailing Poem by Tim Liardet

Strange how the dropped crockery does not break
nor reach the floor, and no one notices. Here in this place
of locked cells and of lines kept reassuringly straight

things grow comfortable very slowly. The thought
swims in water brought to the boil, the huge and nameless event
steps in through the wall, and no one notices.

The click of the guard's shoe cannot quite catch up with
its metal tip. What might be a film plays in silence...
And rueful Wilbur's sentence? Oh, a thousand years, served

in hair-fall and scissor-snips, if snip could catch the scissors
and he could remember how to play. Look how his arms
are secured behind his back, and hands slightly more

eager than his own have been fed through his sleeves
to yawn the bow softly across his cello.
Somewhere, years back, the first note snivels.