The Minotaur

 The mahogany table-top you smashed
Had been the broad plank top
Of my mother's heirloom sideboard-
Mapped with the scars of my whole life.


That came under the hammer.

That high stool you swung that day
Demented by my being
Twenty minutes late for baby-minding.


'Marvellous!' I shouted, 'Go on,
Smash it into kindling.

That's the stuff you're keeping out of your poems!'
And later, considered and calmer,

'Get that shoulder under your stanzas
And we'll be away.
' Deep in the cave of your ear
The goblin snapped his fingers.

So what had I given him?

The bloody end of the skein
That unravelled your marriage,
Left your children echoing
Like tunnels in a labyrinth.


Left your mother a dead-end,
Brought you to the horned, bellowing
Grave of your risen father
And your own corpse in it.

Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem |

Poems are below...