'Emptiness Is Everything 23/10/2009 Poem by Margaret Alice

Explained to my friends how we
were taught to write lovely words
like dainty ballet steps in elegant
business writing course

When I applied the lesson, words
twirling on their toes, I was brought
up short, forced to stuff the words
back into heavy boots

Make dissonant lines goosestep again
an official high in the hierarchy makes
a rule without any relevance to reality
forces all words to march heavily

In a battered parade of frost-bitten
moth-eaten lines without meaning,
beauty, rhythm or imagery, true to
the grey ideals of bureaucracy

Emptiness is everything!