TECHNODOC

O doctor, was there ever a time before

your trim cumulus curls massed daily

in menace over indigo-grey stripy tie

locked behind perennial hazy herringbone?

Countless formulae are noted, experiments

written up under your stony glint, distaste

honed on it, your barbed comments brushed off,

your nit-picking mimicked to a tee:

no buttons undone, no chewing, no yawns.

If you know what’s best for you, don’t gawp

or giggle, and learn to wipe that grin off your face.

Ginger, you’re programmed with textbook cheek...

The only kids you’ll father sneer behind your back,

plot to make boffin supreme blow a fuse,

while you engender gadgets and gismos,

checking dials and gauges with loving care.

All that laughter in eyes, brimming pools

truculently bright, eyes so ready

to sparkle, go cold in censure. Caught

in such precision sites, don’t you cower?

Years clocking up hours and misdemeanours

with bitter smile over licensed after-duty moan,

a lemonade but No crisps, thanks. Must go!

Exit on cue to show we’re lazy bums.

 

*

When you retire to fine-tune trouble-free engines,

sit behind New Scientist and net curtains,

won’t the years’ undercurrents ache back

like a lost pulse? They say you used to bend

iron bars like plastic cable. Hollow cheeks, doc !

Won’t the years begin to bend you?