Poetry list
The Shard and the Heart
Shard – mighty tower like Babel built by human hands
and vaunting vanity –
yet a tiny crane assembled
this spike of glass and steel
down through the clouds and into the heart of London.
High above all life
hung
one
life attached by
bolts and puny girders.
No scream would ever be heard –
not even Edvard Munch’s despair
and the infinite scream he sensed passing through nature.
The crane or the scream?
The shard or the shriek of despair? –
belonging is so tenuous,
a mere breath away from oblivion.
So is there any point? And how could a vine help?
The heady fruit of ecstasy and eternity
flows from the gnarled branch
and the flimsy tendril yet
most of all from the
deep, deep heart
the heart
of love.
Abide.
© Neil Thompson 2012