This Wonderful Ballet [rev] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

My ears are carrying Tchaikovsky - dancing as the Fairy
Dewdrop to Nutcracker suite, twirling down the passage
in the office open-plan, inspired by conversing with Azui,
I explain we need have a self-assessment’s theme song -
we should all sit in rows in my government show; with red
clouds rising behind every head - done with special effects

While all are writing with a background of lonely Siberian
taiga rising behind us, & singing Yesterday by the Beatles -
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks
as though they're here to stay, Oh, I believe in yesterday -
now there’s a shadow hanging over me, self-assessment
looms so painfully - oh I believe in yesterday - then a

Foreign voice singing off-stage - Domani, let’s forget
about tomorrow ‘cause tomorrow never comes; with
loud sounds of this singer being strangled; then all the
officials sitting in front sing the Beatles’ It’s gonna be
a hard assessment day, I should’ve been working like
a dog, but when I’m in the office, joy starts to call,

And it makes me feel all-right – we stand up en masse
and sing Bon Jovi’s I ain’t gonna live forever, I just want
to live while I’m alive - policemen run in spraying us with
teargas, to the background music of Just another brick
in the wall - we take up our places in our work stations
against a laser-light show of icicles and falling snow-

flakes and the Song of the Volga Boatmen hummed by
us: then a group of cleaners enter to the music of the
Nutcracker Suite overlaid as the Volga Boatmen song
fades, the cleaners are revealed to be fairies doing
this wonderful ballet….