#586 - I kept a gate

 

10.viii.21

586

2.221

I kept a gate

 

admire it, will you?

I fed it on rusty thinking and fire

 

slavishly, one size fits all

and stroked, and forwards, back

electric!

 

stood hair on end

took temperatures

played with the bruises, poked

 

rarely you’d see me painting the gate

making a guess for the colour

 

and some said it was all in my head

no one would come or go

but I said so

 

some parts hommage

took the toll in knowing

knock knock

and peekaboo

 

thought once to bring it into service

but I was keeping the gate for later

 

a kept gate will always come when it’s called

 

it wasn’t exactly a day job

did I dawdle there?
was the town my work

or wilderness?

I kept the questions out

 

I swung the hinges

can’t you hear?

 

I kept a gate

for luck

or you could say

‘safe’ keeping

 

I kept a spare gate

just in case

 

either side they’d carry on

but still I kept

it could have been a hologram

had as much effect

 

what strange languages they spoke

you hear them with their violin voices

era we must keep out

 

must have dreamt the dark

flesh pound it is

nearest the heart

 

just where

and when

it must have been from the other side

I heard the birds call morning