Sunday 16 November 2014

Ineffable


I sit upon the floor inside
my childhood bedroom, wondering why
it is that God cannot be seen.
‘God is in everything,’ I’m told,
but I can see this isn’t true.

He isn’t in my radio.
He isn’t in my Action Man.
He isn’t in the church on Sunday.
Although I look, I cannot see
him in my mother’s shouting face.

I manufacture God from things
left lying on my bedroom floor:
some wooden blocks; a dried-out paintbrush;
the engine from my brother’s train-set;
and a wig from the dressing-up box.

God balances next to the bookshelf.
‘Hello there, God’ I say, but God
does not reply; he doesn’t have
a mouth. ‘Here, borrow mine,’ I say.
I wear God’s wig and start to talk.

I talk like God, or how I think
that God would talk. I open-shut
my mouth, then open-shut my mouth
again as silence fills the room.
I stand there, mute, more fish than God.

‘For God is very like a fish,’
I say, in pompous, priestly tones.
I open-shut my fish-God mouth
for one last time, de-wig myself,
and put God back inside his boxes.

2 comments:

  1. "- Where?"
    "Behind you!"
    (Children's laughter as Lens turns this way and that on the stage)
    "... Where?"
    "BEHIND YOU!"

    ;-P

    I just ordered my copy of your lovely new 'pon-paper-printed publication, Fergus; looking forward to reading it! Long may you rock/bop/thrash/boogie on.

    Stay puft, and all that (free) jazz...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pax! Great to hear from you. Hope you enjoy the book. Cheers, F x

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