Portal Monitor / by Brian Kunde

Portal Monitor
by Brian Kunde

Most every patron would prefer
We had no portal monitor:
What user ever celebrates
These dragons who defend our gates,
Whose eyes perceive potential crimes
And thwart iniquitous designs?
What patron of those passing by
Walks not in dread to hear the cry:

“Slow down, you! Let me see that pack!
This wasn’t borrowed: put it back!
You know you can’t bring in your lunch,
So hand it over. Thanks a bunch!
Your old I.D.’s no good this year.
No roller skates, you! Outta here!
Go back outside to drink that Coke.
Hey, you! You're not allowed to smoke!”

The monitor’s feared ocular
May never prove too popular
Among the folk its bearer’s cowed
By barking words like these aloud.
Not one among the crowd would dare
To meet that hard and gimlet glare,
Nor yet believe their foeman’s screed:
“I’m here to serve you, yes indeed!”

* * * * *

Portal Monitor

from Bibliotec(hnic)a : Poems, Sep. 24, 2013.
An earlier version appeared in
SUL News Notes, v. 2, no. 33, Aug. 20, 1993,
as “We Do It All for You!”

1st web edition posted 9/27/2013.