Microscopic Windfall
Perhaps I’m facing pogonophobes?
Apparently wore the wrong face.
Age-hardened wiry wisps forge
post-pubescent platemail -
protect strangers
from my truest fleshy pores, protect me
from the xenophobes of the Winter Conference.
It’s all pitching and coffee breaks
In a hall too grand for these meager mergers
Silent hecklers - likely clean-shaven -
likely Twitter-blasting about
an awkward pitch
and bitterness.
A beard grows opacity over my ebullient disinterest,
feigns sophistication amidst sophists,
and harbors microbes – an entire ecosystem –
Bored, I wonder;
Do they hold conferences as well?
Share stories around a follicle?
How uncomfortable
the itch of capitalism,
This profit pilgrimage
huddles us together
for that sickness to spread.
Free meals, networking with the estranged -
connect vacuously over downed drinks
and political action.
Shallow words spread thick
on the biological superhighway
bacterium feast freely.
The Winter Conference;
a microscopic windfall.
CONTEST ANNOTATION:
I’ve attempted to employ alliteration (‘post-pubescent platemale’), ambiguity (‘…for that sickness to spread’), double entendre (‘free meals’ and ‘bacterium feast freely’), imagery (‘my truest fleshy pores’, ‘Age-hardened wiry wisps’), paradox (‘ebullient disinterest’, ‘networking with the estranged’), and parallelism (‘likely clean-shaven – likely Twitter-blasting’). Not sure I’ve nailed every aspect of these devices - love the contest format as a way to force us in new directions!
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