Fugue with Hands

a flutter of fingers
and gleam of gold
still and elegant 
curved against a page
scoring time

do you follow the raindrops 
as they track the glass
of your top-floor-flat?

do you stare over roofs,
drag on your cigarette,
listen to the silence and
catalogue your designs

and pretend your world is on the rise?
that the prize you lost
is yet to be won?
that what you do is worth your time?

or are you never there?
is your life always somewhere else
doing something more important?

is the Time Management Plan
easier and more natural than
requiring loving, dreaming, two
warm hands?

more fitting to fill
a rented space with smoke and
pacing; with a life stripped clean
of all essentials

to the maximum of rising eating drinking
sleeping fucking mode of being all work
and working: the unsung hero
of our modern age

fulfilling their requirements
scoring-out your own?

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