Gene McCormick- A Poem

Population: 700

Ties are not required of human drones
slogging through nine-to-five
casual working environments
but such by-the-hour support systems
don’t live in preening residences
on lots of an acre or larger,
overbuilt houses forcing themselves
to the edges of landscaped tracts:
more house, less grass for the
weekly lawn service to mow.
Heading east to west, vice versa,
it wouldn’t take five minutes
to drive end-to-village-end
of the hard-to-arrive-at destination.
North to south, a bit less.

Doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers
make up the enclave’s earning power
and by day they all wear ties.
Home from their places of work
the first order of non-business
is unknotting, draping imported
multi-colored tie silk on special racks
sequestered in walk-in closets.
Ties are a pricey ornamentation
without practical function;
the men in these houses have many.
They like them.


Brief Bio: Gene McCormick was kidnapped at age six by a roving band of evil circus clowns, who fed him nothing but cotton candy for five years. He escaped by being shot out of a cannon, landing on top of Himalayan Mountain #28, where he learned the meaning of life ("It is FULFILLMENT. Go in peace.").