Laurence Tierney
Stoic
On windy days I writhe with cramps
like gnarled old souls from prison camps,
a cubist fitting jigsaw leaves
of outlaw's bedsides up my sleeves.
I'm too arthritic for your floors.
I'm crooked wood for goblins' doors.
I won't keep guard on counterpanes
nor rattle with your anchor chains.
All this and wide uneven hips
saved me from the sailing ships:
I'm no excuse for payout cheques
linging to clouds on ocean wrecks!
No proud élan nor cool panache
like brosy pine or stately ash,
my boughs and twigs are cruelly angled
and even air inside is tangled.
These twigs support a pigeon's seat
and foxes drowse around my feet.
Sharp wasps relax inside my face.
What skin! As hard as a knight's old mace.
My backbone's short and fiercely bent.
I grow where most trees would ferment.
A static barge with insect freight,
I've moored myself to rustic fate.
I'm nature's placid picnic tables
whistling you rhymes and olden fables,
but with growling tomcats for my voice,
I give bad weather Hobson's choice.
I'm shaped like lightning and plant these hips
to kiss the lightning with my lips.
Like webs of a spider on its back
I sweep that spark, return the attack.
Tsunamis, gales and twisters keel
me over, but I dig in my heel,
and even when I burn or die
I am the roof truss of our sky.
Page(s) 32-33
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