A Music-Box Doll (Rev) 9 July 2009 Poem by Margaret Alice

A new act for my State Opera: govern-
ment officials attending a course, blank
expressions, an enthusiastic lecturer
singing and dancing

Making pirouettes, asks the group to
imitate, we get up, stiffly execute the
goosestep we have been taught -
NO! the lecturer shouts in despair

When you do minuets, you must enforce
your authority, your BOSS may not be
chairman, everybody must hand in their
speeches typed neatly - JAWOHL

Herr Oberst! we grandly salute her
more’s the pity, our supervisors are
always chairman of every meeting
and rejecting prescriptions means

Losing our jobs, the lecturer pirouettes
again - we goosestep out of the door
while the Boss calls - Come here you
idiots, time to start

New performance agreements, herewith
I, brain-dead official, undertake to agree
with the boss, signed, the incumbent
of this grave position

Making twenty copies, signing all for
the rest of the day, the lecturer still
pirouetting like a music-box
doll...