Free verse № 17530
Transfixed (#2)
A broken spine of cloud above me
Barely winds across the sky,
A sky so clear that space can see us
Like a speck upon an eyeball.
What wind there is
Wraps your clothes against you
The long grass moulds you in its cup.
How definite you seem
As you lean across me cross-wise
And lower your face, and the broken spine
Is fixed somewhere above Kilburn.
I think how this transfixion must look from space.
13 comments
Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over
The bending poplars, newly bare,
And the dark ribbons of the chimneys
Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,
Torn posters flutter; coldly sound
The boom of trains and the rattle of hooves,
And the clerks who hurry to the station
Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves,
Thinking, each one, ???Here comes the winter!
Please God I keep my job this year!???
And bleakly, as the cold strikes through
Their entrails like an icy spear,
They think of rent, rates, season tickets,
Insurance, coal, the skivvy???s wages,
Boots, school-bills, and the next instalment
Upon the two twin beds from Drage???s.
For if in careless summer days
In groves of Ashtaroth we whored,
Repentant now, when winds blow cold,
We kneel before our rightful lord;
The lord of all, the money-god,
Who rules us blood and hand and brain,
Who gives the roof that stops the wind,
And, giving, takes away again;
Who spies with jealous, watchful care,
Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,
Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,
And maps the pattern of our days;
Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,
And buys our lives and pays with toys,
Who claims as tribute broken faith,
Accepted insults, muted joys;
Who binds with chains the poet???s wit,
The navvy???s strength, the soldier???s pride,
And lays the sleek, estranging shield
Between the lover and his bride.
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