Hymn for Toby

You wouldn't construct your life manifesto in the form of a plea to a high court judge To be sentenced to life in a percolating cesspool, where freedom wears the veil of a treadmill trudge So why then, as you drift through the bountiful void, of the cavernous concourse to the bottleneck passage You trade your blank canvas at the men's club with the cocoon boys For laborious errands and the works of a savage Shine a torch in the eyes of the beholder, burn the curriculum, the low hanging fruit A thread of white chalk encircles the smouldering stake in the ground, where hangs an ill-fitting suit The crime scene trembles at the return of old Gustav, a transmission plays on a looped tape machine A consolation monochrome empathy telegram, with crossbred thoughts picked apart at the seams