The Tinkerer's Shed

-

The Tinkerer’s Shed 


Most every tool has a home 

here, this tin-roofed tangle


suspended somewhere between

upended and just ordered enough


to suggest somebody knows

what’s what. Levels hang crooked


from a pegboard; a box

of loose wrenches tightens down


one corner of a scraggle-toothed

table saw; leaned on the wall  


and looking down from the loft 

a constellation of scraps bear weighty


thoughts of all they might one day

mean. Words, too, overflowing


their bags, poorly-labeled and pouring

to hazard any step too sure.


What’s thicker than dust here 

is a sturdy faith in hobbled things 


and the unshakeable duty of being

born with shims on our wrists.


In this rust and rattle, that's it:

the one clear and terminal task. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Budget: Unexpected Expenses

-
THE BUDGET: UNEXPECTED EXPENSES Just how much we fight about the God damn budget.  Just what would it cost if God were actually not the pawn picking his way down the side of the board until, finally stuck, we flick down with a wooden click? It’s being slowly leeched,  the carotid of the child's belief, and we must sit here smiling on the porch to sooth  the confusion of the dying.   Our loves and fear are tangled  like an old ratchet strap,  and we've a long trip ahead of us, our hearts in tow. Never enough time before it's time to go. It's a peculiar malady, if none too rare: Where is the waiting room for those of us who both love being here and can't wait to get away? We’ve locked the door and now hate each other  for lingering so. Now we know about our moms and dads. We asked! The goal was living transparently, and now people can see us.  The poor are always popping up  right when we're about to settle in  for the evening or en...
Read more

Unnecessaries

-
Unnecessaries Increasingly I’m noticing the world’s Unnecessaries.                         Different colored birds, A pine, a willow, and an oak, a squirrel Touting a bushy tail, or a yellow flower Beside a rose –                          A world requiring words Like adjectives and adverbs to name and shower It all with descriptives describing the differences. If we had only pines and roses and crows, A single type of bird and flower and tree, Or if day were switched to night without the show Of sunset sinking down beneath the hills, We’d still survive.                              But Artist’s desire beauty, And all the colors, shapes, and sizes fill The unnecessary role of satisfying the senses.
Read more

Clean Windows

-
Clean Windows I hadn’t chalked it in my pocket planner— existential crisis: 8am— but plans, I’ve come to find, are quite  subservient to present things.  A pinch of pepper on my eggs,  some salt, and then does God exist?, as if I needed that to wash   it down, as if one has  to reason out this kind of thing before the second cup  of coffee. No, unwanted wondering  is not a trait I’m proud to keep sustained inside, but as it seems that we are at a tipping point of sorts, the point where cutting clean the canker kills the tree, I’ll learn  to coexist with it the best I can, if flustered at the circumstance. For sake of clarity, it’s most like opening the door to start your day when in comes clambering an addled bird to flip chaotically about your kitchen, forcing you to either kill it, hide behind the couch,  or simply let it flap about for long enough that it eventually wi...
Read more