PEELING

Lulled by the rays of a September star
In a surreal haze of 'out of body'
I joined your paternal trestle
To drink cold beer and set the world to right
Your women were in and out of the kitchen
With pots, like handmaidens
Tottering about to your every call
That is, until the potatoes arrived - two sacks
Then you moved
Eager to prove strength rather than help
But help it was
And like dead pigs' innards, you spilled potatoes
Onto the grass ready for your women's knives

I swapped sides to join three generations of peelers
Once of a day I wouldn't have wanted to be so cast
But there was a certain comfort in sqatting
Knee to knee, engaged in the task of peeling
Besides I didn't want the bloody work
Of butchering the lamb
Nor the sweat of heavy iron cauldrons
And cylinder gas
And it made a change not to have to listen
To your brash vulgarities

Peeling was such a sympathetic way
To bring me closer to your family
It was almost worth the hand cramps
To win approval
But it didn't win me over

Later at the celebration, when you danced
And sang, and laughed with your brothers
I, in female sobriety was a marooned astral
Hating all that segregation.

RESURRECTION

RESURRECTION
Sigh Messiah
Agony of cross
Howl out your heart for death
Echo of shadows

Cry rusty nail
Let twisted minds drown,
Let the blood of slaughter
Steep Calvary

Weep moldy wood
The stench of decay
From hacked bodies of war
Cracked sin-stained skulls

Sting shiny blade
Slice a crimson cull
Splatter gut-gore carnage
Barbarous tribe

Burn torch of night
Illuminate sky
Flood putrefied badlands
Oriflamme dawn

Rise in the light
Snake-cast left behind
Smooth peach in the garden
Resurrection

Jane Sharp
12 March 2010


This is the same poem written in a different metre

RESURRECTION (TAKE TWO)

Sigh, Messiah, agony of the cross
Howl out your heart for death’s shadows to fall

Cry rusty nail, and let twisted minds drown
Let the blood of slaughter steep Calvary

Weep moldy wood with the stench of decay
From hacked bodies of war, cracked sin-stained skulls

Sting shining blade, and slice a crimson cull
Splatter gut-gore carnage, barbarous tribe

Burn torch of night, illuminate the sky
Flood putrefied badlands oriflamme dawn

Rise in the light, the snake-cast left behind
And wait, smooth peach, for the resurrection

Jane Sharp
12 March 2010