EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE - Poem by Barry Tebb

Desks are straining on all fours, flanks

Heaving to hurl the hunched riders

Down crack and cranny, buck

Finger-snapping lids, consume

Scrap and scribble between tongue and teeth.

The blackboard is cleaning itself behind me,

Making my neck prick as it scatters dust

Like seed, empties its clogged pores of clichй,

Anoints its carved channels and cavities

With infinite black ooze and sap.

And I don’t trust that corner cupboard!

Opening its dark doors like the jaws of

Cerberus, shelving its stacks to heave

At my head, ready to snap its quick lock

Round my wrist like a crab.

I watch the windows wink and blink,

Tug at their catches, tempt my fingers

With their openings, crack flying cords

To noose my neck; they eye the bulging roof

Beams, bent like a bow above me.

This whole room has rushed to the world’s edge,

My fingers tip its tottering walls

Braced to hold definition, floorboards

Knotted tight against infinity’s axe, doors

Bolted to contain time and place in time and place together.

I cry ‘help’ as my world whirls,

Is loosed at the single eye of heaven.