a tree was born to grow old & strong,
to become the beginning of a tragedy
that ends as stacks of colorless paper,
staked through the heart and pinned to cubical walls,
office numbers printed on its multitude of lifeless faces

the steady swell of standard operating procedures
                                                                              crash
                                                                       
                                                                             like orderly waves
                                                                                  on the staff infested
                                                                      shore

Watercooler injections

Eating an orange in my cell I wonder--
                                                              when i die,
where will all the mesmerizing conversations
about institutionalized hierarchies go
?