The Ribbon of a Madman’s Weave by Tony Ashenden

Granite Sliver
Arrowhead I see you spurned
by Pigmy Bowman
yet you suffice and scathe
the greening mortar…
Mind that delibly records
attempt
my show and outward personality.

This ribbon of a madman’s weave
is the tape of all my saying
small
border thin and compass hand
the clutch and stay
Fingers….
Placing granite slabs to face
their palms of tungsten flesh
toward the shortened eye.

Yet soon
the tongue of this my wise and scrawl
became as fever pitch
and heavy as the hammer held
halfway in arc
deliberating
as the mother would pressing
down urging fingers
in the lock of Isis eye
to the agony that is mother
And now is mine.

Is birth!

The warder
had me carry seven days in labour
waiting…
before the fertilising seed became
and his eye perceived
the ribbon of wise inflicted
with my word and writing.

He stared
examined even to the letter head
lost in mergence to the polished stone
turning, smiled….
Father dimly smiling through the stain of glass
in the
you can never tell
about face….

He left and straight informed the governor.

The hammer struck
the child full born umbilical cut
began to cry….
My eyes were full of faces
demanding
outstretching palms of tungsten flesh.
Their right they screamed
is feeding first
why was I no askance waiting?

They spread upon my word
the slime
and their cement that matched the slab
and then..
Fingers turned upon themselves
they commanded-
called my clutching hand to lease
my living Scribe
this chipping sliver of their granite.

They took.

…. that morning after
before the ashen face
nether time of wanting day whilst less the night
there stood eight mourners
neath the sky bowl blooding red
in their caps of prison grey
and the circle turning tribute
was the Sower spreading quicklime.

And in my cell

There stood another
waiting for the shining mortar’s greening mould.

-TONY ASHENDEN

Tony is a seasoned traveller; a computer analyst, seaman, shaman, and a complementary alternative therapist. He is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. In his own words – Life is real only then when I am. Please visit his blog Mine Quick Voice of Aquarius to read more of his work.

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