Spoken

Image: the 2022 version of the façade of the art room

 at Fitzroy Community School, Brunswick Street, North Fitzroy

 

good morning

more like a courtesy call

than hello, form of recognition

borne of habit, enough of a sound

to register our existences are real

woken to the instant

 

good afternoon

with its air of a manifesto

unfinished business that must finish

hours of unspoken implications

with us the half-witting witnesses

of this particular afternoon

looking as though we’re in charge

when we’re just along for the ride

 

good evening

is intoned like the tone of its day

whoops for our apparent victory

conjectural, with its ups and downs

commiserations on our disaster

the moment is a giveaway

sip a nightcap, or wear one

and move on to other things

 

good night

the semblance of an ode

in the making, formalising

in brief a temporary finality

a salutation to time gone now,

with the unknown ahead

not so much beckoning

as assuming we will be assumed

each one of us