The Sheds
Sheds: haunches nestled into
banked earth. Cow parsley, ragwort,
bedding high sides. Blunt faces
nose-ringed with hanging padlocks.
Inside, a stook of exhausted
spades, a knackered
wheelbarrow, face-down,
a crippled bike, kept for spares.
Here, where the sheds are,
clocks run slow. One man,
slouched in a doorway,
hand-rolls a cigarette.
Another taps out a briar
onto a windowsill
and then repacks the bowl.
Rapt, he stares across the match flame.
Kids roll and scatter,
break like high-tide
at the allotment’s edge.
They watch, uncomprehending,
the semaphore of sweet-peas,
rocking, bean-rows, carrot-tops;
the closed and secret faces
of the sheds.
The sun goes down
behind the recreation ground,
Breaking ranks, shadow-wrapped,
the houses sidle in.
Dick Jones has been published in a number of magazines, print and online, including Orbis, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Ireland Review, Qarrtsiluni, Westwords, Mipoesias, Three Candles, Other Poetry, Rattlesnake and Ouroboros Review. In 2010 he received a Pushcart nomination for his poem Sea Of Stars and his first collection, Ancient Lights, is published by Phoenicia Publishing
This poem first appeared in Other Poetry anthology Miracles and Clockwork 2005