Sound the Bars

Bouncing off the boundaries.
Playing penny operas in this prison
of red and blue lines.
I prowl the page, my stage,
pace this bleach pulp floor,
lace the air with my language.
My wings bleed out
from the point five millimetre
epicentre, my ground zero,
that they have tried to pen up
in this space, to stop me.

Yet wild wheeling, I create.
Spinning fast enough to make
the pin stripes vibrate
as if plucking the strings
of a razor thin mandolin
hum thrummm de dummm
down to bop sha bop
shulie-abop scat a jam,
a cell block symphony,
a syncopation of sound, as I
hustle, jostle, jive to the side
then, wham bam slam
into the end of the line.
Mashed, mayfly on the margin.

Stunned, stupefied, I fall,
slide back, then grip that flashing
vertical of steel and ink.
My flesh carriage returns
and freefalls, again, down the page
and falling, looks up
at the smoke in its wake
unaware of the below until
smack bottom too fast
to stop so I run.

Red rum red rum
run red run past the lines
and round the one-inch walls.
Far too fast to stop,
for anyone to stop, the solo
I play on my multitude of notes,
my strings, my cage where
you may trap me without
taking away a single thing.
For with my page, pen, and tin cup
I’ll sound out on my bars and sing.