Storming

 Storming

 

 

Dobson, stirring coffee with more vigor,

two sugars and creamer this week,

with little to speak,

less to think, frowns above the cup and drinks.

There’s a nest. Here’s Casper, climbing

for a fistful of feathers

a clutch of trembling warmth

and how he used to teach that.

Stimulating, you see? thinks Dobson,

mouthing s-t-i-m-i-l-a-t-n-g

and so did you, Casper, from under a stone,

we lit fires, these birds have flown,

there’s learning in that somewhere –

Jud’s losing bet and wringing necks.

Dobson, overtopping the nest

cops maybe three or four striplings,

one weaker than the rest,

being stabbed – beaked in the chest.

He’s often withstood the pricking blackthorns,

matted ivy, each handful a gore of spears,

wonders about Arrowroots;

if McVities are still proprietors, purveyors

of your Royal Scots,

and which college disgorged this lot.

But how soon is now and sitting at six desks,

his fledglings try their might,

breast the storm, put shoulders to and test

their strength against these woven twigs,

interlaced and jury rigged,

in balance, in scales, in all else fails,

not the tonics or subdominants,

but the weights, misplaced on brass pans,

the durability of crusts around custard flans,

and whether the omelette will stand

to be folded or flipped.

Still, Dobson rolls his eyes inward, grins,

fingers the agenda; circumscribing rings

listening to his meeting’s many things,

of snips, snails, stories, trysts,

claims, counterclaims,

reading of lists,

and if she doesn’t like to be addressed,

why, the other tears open her breast –

and lets fly.