Making things

I've got a friend who makes furniture out of old pieces of wood and metal etc he finds in in the hard rubbish left on the street. Last night he was showing me some of what he has made and how he makes it.

It occurred to me that what he was doing would make a great community TV program. It is also a metaphor for how we should treat others.

Since I didn't have a camera on me at the time I wrote a poem instead...............

Carpenter

Every now and then

The fuzz clears from the brain

And you see

Reality

Not the illusion of what is

But the reality of

What is meant to be

It’s in the old wood

And rusty iron

Not just recycled

But reshaped

Not loosing any of the defects

That make it what it is

Even perhaps gaining some

A hole accidently drilled in the wrong place

Filled with a spare rusty bolt

Useless as application

But essential for the nature

Of its existence

The hands of the maker

Glide softly over the surface

Sanding lightly

Clearcoat only

Anything else would destroy the patina

Devaluing beyond words

In vain attempt

To make better

Our natural tendency

Is to panel beat the surface

With a blunt hammer

And a coat of shiny paint

As long as it looks

The same as everything else

It’s OK

If you hide what’s underneath

Maybe like the quantum

It’ll cease to exist

At least for a time

But the inconvenient nature

Of the quantum universe

Ensures that it just

Pops up again

At random

Someware else

It’s much better

To help the ladder

Become the table

That it’s meant to be

Than to force it

To be the shiny

Set of steps

That you want

 

An addition to the cosmic dustbin

I haven't posted to this blog in almost two years - partly because I haven't written much poetry in a while - but mostly because I couldn't be bothered.
 

There is probably no one reading this - and it didn't seem worth the effort - but then it occurred to me last night that even though no one may read this now, it will hang around in cyberspace probably for millennium after I have returned to star stuff, and in the far future some alien cyber archaeologist having a particularly boring day wading through the financial documents of countless 20^th and 21^st century corporations or the equally inane musings of our media moguls and their lackeys of both the print and video and audio variety will come across this and may actually read it before tossing it into the cosmic recycling basket of history

Out of the Dark

Out of the dark

And into the black

As mercy fades into morning

And imaginations spirit

Floats along with the dawn

Through the byways of the world

Among the dust and the darkness

The scared, the scarred and the sacred

The walking wounded

Lost wandering the world

Stuck on one marble

Blue amongst the black

And pinpricks of light

Unrealised destiny

Dust to dust

And back to dust

But

Star stuff are we

Every molecule

Born in the heart of a star

Sometimes an exploding one

And scattered to the four ends

Of the universe

Along with suffering

And mercy

And the pain of forgiveness

That we must accept

From ourselves

Our scattered selves

Our shattered selves

Individual and collective

For where mercy and compassion

Doth begin in the heart of one

It needith to not stay there

Least it die

But hard it is

And terrifying in the least

To break the hereditary chains

Of ego

And isolation

To accept the other

As the self

And set one free

From expectation, achievement and doubt

The little boy lost

That will never grow up

And maybe should not be encouraged to try

Suffer unto

The little children

The little child

Unless you be as such

As one of these

Lost among the stars

And the dust

And the darkness

From which it was born

Wandering the byways of the universe

Away from the imagined safety

Of the cradle

The marble

Blue amongst the black

Star stuff

Dust and destiny

Life’s promise

And terrible reality

One and the same thing

To be embraced with

Arms outstretched

As we float in the blackness

Punctuated with

Pinpricks of light

Our universe

The universe

Any universe

Every universe

Punctuated with pinpricks

Of thought

And feeling

Wrapped in heredity

And dust

From the heart

Of an exploding star

But still greater

Than

The universe

Any universe

Every universe

Our universe

Locked in thought

And feeling

Arms outstretched

Amidst the blackness

And the pin pricks

Of light

Around us

Our stars

And

Our

Selves