The poem is built from a single command, "speak," repeated three times, and each time the situation makes speech seem useless or out of place. The first asks someone to speak on behalf of a warlord, "our number one self," a phrase that sounds like an ego grown huge and violent. The second pushes the futility further: the listeners have "ears of ash," and teaching music to a swan is a task with no point. The last pair of images sets a grave beside a bed, suggesting that silence may be the right response to both death and intimacy.
The title, "Propriety," points to the question of what is fitting to say, and when. The speaker's tone is dry and clipped, almost like giving orders, yet underneath there seems to be weariness or doubt about words themselves. The mood is stark and a little darkly funny. Judging by the final lines, the poem suggests that speaking too much, or at the wrong moment, can be as empty as saying nothing.