Club Hoppers by Tatiana Pahlen

Club Hoppers
By Tatiana Pahlen

I discern them in the crowd:
Faces fixed with the same feigned smile:
All extol you while you're around,
Then roast your back with a pack of lies.

Bitingly bent in conversation –
Begin and end with no concern,
All their tails and punctuation
Are distorted, twisted and worn.

At night, club hopping, they hunt down
Failures to their sting-tail-tongues.
Still sorely bored, yet always out
To seize and mock the transient prone.

For years and years . . . the same sneers and poses.
I joined them briefly and quietly quit.
They can be fun in paltry doses,
To view the contest posing to fit.