Platinum Catalyst Poem by Roger Gerald Hicks

Mensa...society...qualification...top 2%... anyIQ test...

Arrangement's out of whack...barn-like room. Chairs each side- gapping expanse to traverse.Everyone calculating target and likelihood.Junior high dance in gym, except seventh graders pushing fifty.Folks gawking "Jeopardy" like in a Sunshine Home.Black outfitted guy, reading L. Ron Hubbard thriller.

Ritualistic kitchen migration. Doorway lurking. Barricading wine, ice.Munchies-table walled solid by the conversation starved.Ah! gravel-pan glitter. Nine listeners savor each word,sustaining utterer, refraining - provisionally- from disputing tenuous wisdom.

Attractive red-head, ingénue near the frig. Thoroughbred encircled by pie-eyed mules. Grizzled men crowd the teen; whiffing dimly remembered scent.Someone asks:"Mensa? "No.Red prevails sans map pin.No handsome prince in the offing, but pity's misplaced;
she covets the hub.Personalities glean combinations hypersonically. Several venture topical comments;not insipid, me-focused banalities.

A beauty swathes in, consort in train (debonair couple,
rung above façade) .Twenty-five, creaseless, perfectly proportioned.Colorful sun suit.Each trimmed blond hair in exact place. Flashing lodestone green eyes.

Consort's conservative- music teacher? Handsome.Shy of thirty-two.Solid stage for the bold, dingy diva.Act belied by cue-sifting glances. Trilled phrase to each.
Sowing her charms; cataloguing effect.Vivacious.Enlivening. Art. Music. P-o-e-t-r-y! !

Solo, her husband couldn't mutate tomb to solon, no matter how wistful the distaff clan, but Blondie mesmerizes all.

Seductive yin couplet. Senior gaggle.Renegade yang band.Isolation, loneliness alleviated.The destitute
inwardly yipping concert with the scintillating dyad.
Camaraderie flares!Rudeness, dis-respect pass sans umbrage.Momentarily synched marionettes opiated. Precipice-terror subsides.

Shrill clamoring remorse quelled by a ray-thin slat of hope.