0300 Dante On Mowing The Front Lawn Poem by Michael Shepherd

Let's not go into the matter of that
dark wood in our back garden which
shames us in the eyes of our
prissy neighbours (we call it
our 'poetic arbour', where
camelopards roam) -

mowing the lawn - that's all I can manage
between poetic stints:
it's hell when you put it off -
the wife, the pointed looks from
those prissy neighbours, the
pricks of social conscience, and
the guilt...oh the guilt...
sins of omission, all that stuff, I'm
in and out of the confession box...

then when I get round to it at last
it's purgatory - the grass is long,
gets in the rollers at the hub, it's
wet at the roots, tears when it should cut,
bald brown patches revealed -
the neighbours' children do their
'watch and pretend to hide their suppressed
laughter with a hand and a smirk' act... but

it's sheer (sheared?) paradise when
it's done and I can look the neighbours
in the eye and dare them to
make some pointed remark in
the guise of compliment - how I hate
this pre-modern irony, Juvenal started it...

all this to get a whiff of paradise...
and now it's just rained this morning and
the bloody grass looks unshaven
already... lawnmowing, it's just
one eternal round - look,
the neighbour's out already with his
swanky new machine; it's
a real human comedy


(thanks to Adam and The Poetry Society for the initial inspiration)