What tempted me to join the queue?
It must be some great treat.  
Only delight could keep these souls
Shuffling on blistered feet.  
I turned a corner hours ago,
Quite perpendicular,
But as I count the corners off
I’ve tallied five so far.  
The walls are clean, but they’re not bright,
Scrubbed to sobriety.
I passed a blotch I’d seen before,
But it might lie to me.  
This line may loop into a square,
And no one’s first or last,
And all who’ve shuffled patiently
Are doomed to lose the past.
Did I ascend to this closed floor
By staircase or by lift?  
Outside must lie some wider world,
Denied a precious gift.    
The walls are bare of openings,
But we need only one.  
Quiet can’t be the sole reward
For everything we’ve done.

The sheets and blankets are too big
For such a little bed.  
They drape their fringes on the floor,
And dribble dreams with red.

The brain can’t sluice the nightmares out
Though a grate stopped with cloth.  
Thick curtains collect spiderwebs
And flutterings of moths.

The ocean waves are murmuring,
And some who walk the shore
May pause to hear some wisdom there,
And linger more and more.  

The seas are older than the old,
And jealous of regret.
Their murmurs wash out memory,
And make a soul forget.

Dour duty may seem cruel
To novices, but rasped
To callouses by some hair shirt,
Skin glories in its clasp.  

A rougher kiss is sweetest bliss
To scourged and toughened hides,
Until abraded to a scar
Where stunted dullness bides.

Words can wriggle through the cracks
Where grosser largeness blocks,
And even with no aperture
Huskless speech can seep through locks.

Life’s a very busy thing
And rushes by so fast,
And since inertia rules this world
It cannot help but last.  

Transactions plonk the daylight hours,
And revels blot the dark.
There is a grimy window near
That looks on a glum park.

The town shone cleanest in the mist.  
The clerk rushed for his train,
And if he dallied on his course,
The mist would clot to rain.  

Because he didn’t know the time,
He couldn’t find the way.  
The tower clock was crowing six,
But spires lead clerks astray.

Humbler clocks are best for humble folk;
A fob swung by his flank.  
But he’d forgotten to wind his watch,
And so the dial lay blank.