Listening Post

Leaning, whilst listening to endless stories
Of mordant folk I’d never met or knew,
Inventorising screeds of Petes and Rories
Prestigitate quite suddenly to view;
To swell a scene or so would do,
A little local colour can’t go wrong;
But detail mounts on detail, scrawling sends
The mind beyond, adrift; and so, before long,
Another soul to killfile and ignore,
Another voice to imitate to friends,
Another end; no, not because they bore,
But tempting to our taste the latest fad
For talking out of turn. It is too bad.

Thomas Clark