Pecking Order

Pecking order disrupts taut
invention. Put that in
your pipe. 
The smock that you are
wearing wears on 
denizens of this
building.
 
Cheap materials clogged together
gather a ferocity like sizzle
held in state. Steak. Stakes.
Do you 
take this
man?
 
Say a few, no wait!
Stay a few.
State your case.
Delete the contents
of contentment.
 
Mean what you say when you stray
from here. This point. Some clustered
glut of erudition.
Shun the weeds and work
like this.
Browbeat your competitors
or die yourself. 
​

​Sheila E. Murphy Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent books are Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023) October Sequence: Sections 1-51 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), and Sostenuto (Luna Bisonte Prods (2023). Murphy received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland). 
Her Wikipedia page can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy

Image: Josh Hild Unsplash