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Mark Burnhope - Standing is the Apples to Sitting’s Oranges
Well Versed is edited by JODY PORTER

Standing is the Apples to Sitting’s Oranges
Mark Burnhope

On the Diamond Jubilee debacle
pink-suited Elton John sings:
I’m still standing but the thing is
he isn’t. Note: the stool buckling under
his gravitas. Every band member stands
but the drummer, or everything before
the jam – cool, measured – is butchered.

Standing is staring, greenly, at the fence
Elton croons subliminally, bids me to climb
higher towards the heights he frequents,
employ unprecedented levels of sleeping
muscle. I rise from the sofa, open
the curtain, jot down our encounter’s gist
as furiously, and frankly, as I can:

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