Christopher Askew

A Hope of Irony

you say you are not boring 

yet you would have me walk 

with you down buttoned halls 

of block and glass, past cubicles 

fluorescent-lit where bodies 

bend to thankless tasks -

oar-slaves to the ebb and flow

of an implacable paper tide

where numbers swirl in wordy 

pools: fiscal fears, fiduciary 

claims, markets, margins, clients' 

tears, regulators’ undersights - 

eddies into maelstroms

in some raging monetary sea

then, drifting hour on Sunday hour

on rivers of inchoate sound

flowing from that glowing 

screen, where shifting shapes 

run senseless round, dissolving 

motion, meaning, mind 

into a suffocating mire. 

(Ennui is fatal to relationship)

free me to flee your measured 

murk, and run through vibrant 

jungles of illimitable life 

until you exorcise your inner suit and tie.