His Allotment Shed Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

Shove hard
to open
this crazy
wooden shack
The wind
bashed his landship
with icy cuffs,
besieged now;
green bayonets,
revolutionary weeds
they shout
New Order!

Inside,
cathedral dim
a greying bundle
of bamboo sticks,
wire-stiff string
to mark out
the flower border
and in an old
tobacco tin
next to the oil can-
(brazed seam
bleeding a metal
pearl,
got a prize
in that year)
the rusted key
for his house,
the one
made of brick

The trim agent
let herself in
breaking a
bright red
teardrop nail
trying the lock
her heels
tacking down
an archipelago
of iron hard lino
'there's no chain-
this should go quick! '
she scolded into
her mobile phone

The next day,
on floorboards
desert dry
one last dogged box
slugged it out
with clumping boots
and outside
bright new wood
bore the word: 'Sold'


A leaded diamond
fell out, when
the door slammed shut,
silence seeped in and
unanchored dust
rushed to fill
a lane of light
weightless
as stories untold