Monday 31 May 2010

Pointing



The blocks of ironstone
bound by rigid mortar
flake away


like some dry mud cracking
in a shallow hollow
once a pool


or honey coloured cells
in a comb of pointing
congealing.


A mix far too strong to
take the stone’s expansion
and fall out


slapped in to free a man
from the tedium of
repointing,


the whole point of pointing
to take the punishment
forgotten.


Inside, with the same care,
the man places people
in a vice


insisting that the words
should be stronger than the
lives they frame


while the words’ own Word waits
to take the strain of our
distortions.

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