Something Understood
Be seated. So much silliness. Go in fear
of imperatives. Love,
as much as anything else, as little.
Stop trying to touch
the stained light, it’s not for you. Feel
the wood instead; use
has polished the grain, this is not good,
this is not evil. Wood
is also stained. And so on. Deliver us
from this, from that.
From our petty convictions. Is it true
that belief makes
something true? If only here? If
only. Listen: the hinge
of restlessness caught in a pew, a child
itching to join in. Give
us this day our daily bread. Forgive
us our trespasses.
How many mouths has this mattered to?
How many has it fed?
Enough. Find the light, the door. Be sated.
(first published in the anthology Ten: The New Wave (ed. Karen McCarthy Woolf; Bloodaxe 2014).
Edward Doegar’s poems have appeared in various magazines including The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Poetry Ireland Review. He is a Complete Works fellow and six of his poems appear in the Bloodaxe anthology Ten: The New Wave.
@edwarddoegar
andotherpoems.com 