Charles Grindley - Sailors and Cloth

Charles Grindley brings us this well composed poem. Read it aloud to yourself under your breath when your boss is away if you're at work. If you work from home, do the same.

Sailors And Cloth:

Small creative designs,

Saint Bartholomew playing with a razor

And no damn skin,

Toying with brown shiny wings,

Bending the day into a sort of pen,

Mixing paint in old silver socks and green baggies,

These are all roofs,

Powdered fast red coats of paint,

Wainscoting, waistcoats, workshops,

Poorly-made excuses repeated indefinitely.

This is bloody and the truth,

The release I sought was one of disease.

I sat beside Hugh and said:

Grease ‘em up you goofy shit,

You are right, nothing is crazy.

If a day cannot pen even weak love,

How can it quest,

How can it pursue entire Sundays,

When the distant clangs throw it off the course,

And harsh words streak down phone lines,

Telling us about roofs

And red coats of paint.

It is all so harsh and unhappy

And bloody and the truth.