Poet's Workshop

 
A poetry idea sits waiting in my workshop.  
Marking some initial lines with a carpenter’s pencil  
I chain-saw the first cuts of a rough shape,  
pillar-drill for deeper meaning  
and tap some stanzas into position  
always with an eye on planing the soundscape.  
Aided by Axminster, Metabo, Ryobi, Festool  
and my father’s old hand-tools  
there are phrases to be filed  
words to be shaped with sharp chisels  
and grammar to be screwed in, one quarter-turn at a time.  
 
If the whole thing somehow doesn’t look right  
I get out the angle-grinder.  
If that fails, only one thing for it:  
the big Bosch demolition-hammer … and start again.  
If it’s looking good, it goes in Grandfather’s 100 year old ‘weighs-a-ton’ vice  
to squeeze out surplus words  
before rounding the edges with a spokeshave  
smoothing with one of several sanders  
and polishing-oiling-polishing-oiling-polishing  
until I’m sick of it. Then I know it’s ready.  
 
“Josh, you’ve got more equipment than a bloody DIY store …”  
I look at him askance and reply “I’m a poet for chrissakes,  
I need all the power-tools I can lay my hands on”.