Bull-Headed Maul

Dec 24 2016

It was a house of many rooms.

Before the wrecking ball.

Before the crow-bar, jack-hammer, chain-saw.

Before the bull-headed maul,

swung

in its grand momentous arc

like anvil to glass.

So many mansions

in this dwelling place;

rooms, like nesting dolls.

Each

had its sticky door, 4 right angles.

Its thick accretion of paint

infused with that funky bouquet

of cooking odour, stale smoke.

With the residue of sweat, sex, human remains.

With flecks of shed skin,

like the dirty pall

on a public handrail.

The narrow corridors

had blind corners, squeaky floors.

Where natural light

did not penetrate,

stale air

made the mind wander.

And where the sound of the clock

could be heard everywhere,

a second-per-second, ticking ahead

no matter what.

So each of us sat

in our small hermetic space;

my bare monastic cell,

your sumptuous plush

of pink pastel.

How satisfying it is

to crush and break.

The giddy glee

of smashing, rampage

unconstrained.

The weight of the maul

carrying me high overhead,

it inexorable arc

completed.

I even lost track of the clock

in all that demolition.

But in the settling dust

to which we all belong

I could hear its tock,

one second-per-second, doggedly on.

And unobstructed sun, filling the space;

as if the energy of light

was more than enough

to could keep the walls in place

hold the roof up.