Peter Philpott (Bishop's Stortford, UK): From "Are We Not Drawn..."

From “Are We Not Drawn…”

I'm swamped
- - - and pinched
I know what I ought to do
- - - and don't
dream of escape
- - - a ship
a different shape
- - - a landscape
a stuttering play
- - - don't trust ease
the hardness
- - - the encumbrance
to be aware
- - - the grin of this world
fight against
- - - sufficient to know
there is your hand
- - - the jar, the new
the force of this
- - - never here


*

made me angry
- - - each moment
forged anew
- - - did you think for consistency?
among the brute material
- - - how it's pushed & harmed
do you really think you could control that?
- - - oh boy, that's another era
gone
- - - wandered away from this town
everyone leaves you
- - - & their cloying love
is what actually nourishes
- - - & the occasional rage
I name this feeling
- - - my fingernail is about to fall out
am I made less
- - - how much will I lose?
at the end
- - - everything