This poem is taken from PN Review 212, Volume 39 Number 6, July - August 2013.

Poems from Nuncle Music

Gareth Reeves
♦♦

Wind-up people, we are all wound up,
they wind me up, I wind you up.

This is the sharps and flats purge,
now I take it instructions will be given.

As instructed I restructure myself,
I confess to everything and more,
I confirm I conform.

My conformity is contempt.

Listen, I whip myself up in mad
whipping-top white-note noise

- wound-up, whipping, whipped...

and the whipped-up whisperers,
they cross the street,
they cross toward me,

they cross to the other side.

Listen: wound up, whipped up, wiped out,
wiped up, washed out, washed up
...
Searching, please wait...