Craftsman

He is the maker. His scope is vast. Hundreds
of feet of steel riveted to steel, ton
upon ton aspiring to the cloud-base,
nurturing novel lives entwined and crossed,
echoing the wider world, suggesting,
shadowing, foretelling or denying
his dream that strides across horizons, is
a landmark for the traveller, shelters
the lonely, guides the lost, defies the storm.

Perhaps he sits, quietly, strand by strand
twisting a cage of filigree, looping
the rhymes, the chimes of assonance, to hold
one brilliant sonnet; or hammers through
rough chips of slate or granite which he hangs
asymmetrically on barbaric chains,
as rhythmic necklaces, armbands of sound.

Or is he skilled at polishing a stone
until the outer shape reveals its soul
simply and perfectly as a haiku?

Under the workbench and precision tools,
discarded papers, scrapped designs, and heaped
offcuts, swarf, trial pieces, broken dreams.

May: 2008

Identity crisis

I am the rock of ages.
Mother. Grandmother. Defined and labelled
by my greying hairs, by paperwork.
So many chains and shackles hang from them,
those labels. Docket. Pigeonhole.
Crib, cabin and confine.

As Unreliable Hormonal Woman
ages to Forgetful Tedious Crone,
Teenage Poetic Angst should now decline
             from observations acid and perverse
             to thoughtful and Augustan forms of verse
laid out in careful line by polished line.
             Abandon lust and yearning, and expect
             maternal bias to command respect.

Why should I fit this mould?
Some days I don’t know who
I am
at all.
I do not own a name
crisp, edged and cold
for you to call.

I am voracious
sucking
vacuum cleaner of sooty crannies,
I take it all in.
Captain Leafblower, disturber of the peace,
socio-conservative-political,
active, inactive and out, I blow
shit and stardust impartially.

I am the rage of those who are abused
trainloads of tired commuters in the night
the shiny handle of a tool that’s used
the joyous courtship of the birds in flight
a thundercloud hanging over ruined towers
tears and sunlight and raindropped flowers

I am

I am the child who dreamed of horses
I am remarriage after divorces
I am a shower of bracing water
I am T S Eliot’s daughter
wiper of cobwebs from the corners of verse
grinder of ink for a buried curse
pain in the body and songs in the head
I am keys and hands that refuse to be dead
I am the voice of silent stone
I am the snowflake
                           windbent
                                         alone

April: 2008