Nettles

He sank into their calculations and snorted on the stench

Of their arithmetic

Looked for the boy who was hanging his head low

More trophies than ideas

To follow their pretence

With a scowl in his pocket and a smile on his face

He followed with obedience and fell in the nettles

Afterwards those spikey whispers said he brought his own rope

And skipped the bits they loathed

Didn't scramble to find a dock leaf to capture back our hope

To advice his mind had closed

He lost all of his footholes

And with a scowl in his pocket and a smile on his face

He followed with obedience and fell in the nettles, fell in the nettles, fell in the nettles

He was a toothpick!

And the garlic and the cinder upon the path

Had failed to blunt or hinder the slow collapse

Clinging to the doorframe he was dragged

Off to a reminder of where he had been

With a smile in his pocket

And a scowl on his face

He had nowhere to flee

So sat content in the nettles