A Melodious Carousel [rev.] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

I only wanted a bag camouflaged in black to stash
the illegal trash I drag to work: water, a book, extra
shoes, my fan, a DVD - but it was way too small an
amount for a credit card transaction so I had to buy
chocolate, spoons and vampire nail polish

Dark like old printer's ink; already into a mint crisp
while looking at my translation - heart sinking, it is
an import permit with every term to be researched,
mint is changing my mouth into a sticky cave and
no sucking effort can lift mint of teeth

Such is life - resigned to boredom of official texts,
bureaucracy at its modern best as Terry Pratchett
said, true modern hell lacking stimulation - yet the
background music is heavenly, Mozart making the
stars sing, then Dames Kiri Te Kanawa

And Joan Sutherland mesmerise with satin voices,
each note a musical masterpiece, a vibrating pearl
of infinite delight bound to the next celestial note by
the sweet, clear sound recreating Indra's net where
every note reflects every other in a

Melodious carousel of notes holistically attached to
form a perfect illusion of lighted sound spiralling in
an eternal roundabout in which the song becomes
a horizontal explosion of vertical chords creating a
melody moving on inexorably, unstoppable

The total explains everything about quantum physics
and holograms I ever struggled to understand - and
still the melody sings…

[8 July 2014]