I love that small silver thimble full of time
before the start of the day.
A little quiet time to get the job done
before all the work starts getting in the way.
It is just me, backed by a little music
played on a vacuum cleaner - full drone –
by another someone, somewhere
as the snakes hiss in the boiler by the door.
The empty halls hang on to last night’s forgotten things.
A letter home rests on the bookcase,
a list of spellings lie unlearned on the carpet
and the chewed stub of a pencil clings desperately
to a cold window sill.
And in this classroom stands a steaming cup of dark coffee,
it’s scent climbing into an air
that is as silent and still as an abandoned drum,
and loaded with the tension of a starting pistol.
About Me
- Matt
- I'm a teacher who is still quite new to poetry writing. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them and I'd welcome any comments or thoughts you may have.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Friday, 10 October 2008
A Bad Workman
This evening, surrounded by the darkness of the empty house,
the black nib of my pen points expectantly
at an empty space on the page.
A menacing spearhead of ink and insistency.
Just a phrase or even a well modified noun
and I’ll back off, it seems to say.
But it rests there as still as the judge’s gavel.
It brings to mind an image of a gundog
on dewy heath, standing straight and motionless,
pointing towards it’s far off quarry.
You may have realised that, these are not the lines
that I hoped to write for you tonight.
Right now I am a shelf without a book,
a harbour without lights,
four connected walls that refuse to make a room.
Yet here they are,
pinned between each tick of the clock.
Wedged inside the flaming chorus
of these endlessly whistling candles.
the black nib of my pen points expectantly
at an empty space on the page.
A menacing spearhead of ink and insistency.
Just a phrase or even a well modified noun
and I’ll back off, it seems to say.
But it rests there as still as the judge’s gavel.
It brings to mind an image of a gundog
on dewy heath, standing straight and motionless,
pointing towards it’s far off quarry.
You may have realised that, these are not the lines
that I hoped to write for you tonight.
Right now I am a shelf without a book,
a harbour without lights,
four connected walls that refuse to make a room.
Yet here they are,
pinned between each tick of the clock.
Wedged inside the flaming chorus
of these endlessly whistling candles.
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