I have made this totally perfect creation
A babe one hour old at my breast, sucking,
Eyes closed in embrace, like a true poem.
What man dare lift a pen and offer a lyric?
What man can know what there is to be known?
What man can challenge my own true poem?
Body gripped in an iron fist, squeezed
Without mercy till my eyes start out,
Breath and reason crushed out wailing
Many times, again and again.
To swim and drown, thresh and gasp,
To know the torture of the rack,
To be drawn and quartered alive,
The cleavers and the books bite home,
To fear for sanity, to long for death,
To crawl through hell while others smile,
Then the pain of going up with a landmine
And dropping down in broken and bloody pieces.
Each poem is a child
Much loved, a fidget, disappointing.
A million light years lie inside the brain, unused,
But some of us lean across this abyss of terror
To fish out a few glittering singing pictures.
When a child is brought home, who cares what the risk was.
Man's a fine piece of work and God's worthy plaything.
But if any man can make poem like this,
Create words on paper to compare with this epic struggle,
Let him stand up.
And let the world see if his boasting is justified.
1976
Mary Argent copyright