Sunday, April 27, 2014

5-2 Poetry: Our Old Man

Welcome to Day 29 of the 5-2 Poetry Blog Tour. This month-long endeavor is the work of Gerald So and you can find him and lots of other content at the link.




Our Old Man
by Patti Abbott

Who ate the finest piece of beef leaving us the luminescent fat
Who ordered us into the gloom for Pall Malls or a pint of Jack
Who pinched change from our pockets schoolbags bureau drawers
Who lashed our legs with his thickest belt for sport

His sun-drenched skull is a ripening orange now
Tarring the roof above us forty years on
He pours pitch and pounds nails
Crouching on legs that quake on flat land

Undulating above the pulsating thud
Of his hammer on the softening surface
His flexing back blue-black with sweat
Discarded shingles sailing like a pitcher’s brush back

Shading our eyes we watch unmoved as
He wades through tar rivulets through years past
On his knees but never contrite
His shadow as sharp as a knife encompasses us

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is powerful, Patti!

Sarah said...

So many great images: his sun-drenched orange skull, the luminescent fat. They the scene, and evoke so much history and feeling. Thanks for sharing this poem.

Sarah said...

should have said: they *set* the scene

pattinase (abbott) said...

Thanks for your kind comments. Much more sure of myself with fiction.