From the Tech Table at the Ritz Carlton

Summer 2023

There are no smiles in this quiet room

that smells of quiet coffee

and thrums in air-conditioned still.

The man onstage says “new trade bill”

far too many times,

hands unmoving by his sides

the words barely fluttering up to die,

bumping on crown moulding,

tangled in the chandelier.

There’s no one here

who wants to hear these words

that I would choose to meet

or more likely, they would choose to not meet me

were it not for blurring

of mercantile and mercenary.

But as it is, they trade me their attention

for my expertise and I

pretend to take an interest for a fee

and I, make sure their charts are crisp and clean,

and their voices can be heard,

and that all the arrows in their graphs are rose colored.

The eyes and ears who come to hear

these well staged shaded words

sit leg on knee, in padded ballroom chair

and sip and stare while they record on gadgets  

more for show than used, 

all their thoughts on margins and on revenue.

The money will be moving soon as

signals softly through the wires and the air,

passing by us unaware, accruing

interest, building industry and doing

all the things

you never really see it do:

plumping pillows, 

leaving chocolate squares for bedfellows:

paramour/strangers through and through.

High Ground

     Morgan Driscoll

Issue 58, Autumn 2019

Look at me pretending that

the smell of turkey gravy passed

beneath the ivory candles lit

by hands still thrilled by matches,

or by linen napkins folded with precision,

the sound of voices in the kitchen or

a dozen half traditions

are inconsequent…

that I’d rather be apart to see

there’s little change

to anybody else’s part.

I say I’d rather be ignored:

not to be the figure but

the ground that could be stood on.

I’m not the bigger person here,

just one more loath and ignorant

and self-deceived

and self-intent

on pretense that I only think of others.

It hurts to think them happy at their Mother’s.