Herbert Nehrlich - Swing-Top

They called him 'swing-top'.
No one ever could say
how the name had found him
and why it had stuck.

A bit too much prolactin,
some minor confusion
between oestrogens and
the stirrer testosterone,
but normal enough, really,
for today's global etiquette.

And then, one day, out of
what he would have called
The Blue, things fell apart.

No one was supposed to know,
as Dad had said, the shame,
it was the great, unforgiveable
and ungodly shame of a humanoid,
who had mad a decision,
to forfeit and to stand tall,
if for a brief moment of glory.

And when Big Ben started up,
on the eve of the Gay Mardi Gras
he was there. Wouldn't miss it.
Balancing on the slippery brass,
until the time was right,
he followed the laws of gravity
and left a scuff behind,
on the swing-top holding the bell.

Herbert Nehrlich

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/swing-top/