When in despond I grind my jaws and crunch
the keyboard’s grinning rows of rotten teeth,
my wandering mind wonders what is for lunch,
and hates itself for being its own time’s thief;
wishing for focus and initiative,
it finds elusive others’ get-and-go
– the grafter’s craft, craftsman’s prerogative –
aspires to their estate, but falls below.
Then rogue conceit haply amuses me,
so that, as if some privy sluice, once blocked,
now gushes forth in rude fecundity,
the words, within whatever recess locked,
burst from their sour confinement sore enraged
to stain with viciousness the virgin page.
From: Sonnets, Mostly Bristolian
Published in: Clementine Unbound