THE OLD GIRL FILLS IN AN APPLICATION FORM
FOR EMPLOYMENT

1. PERSONAL DETAILS  - (Please be accurate)

The old girl says ?’I have always maintained
That it isn’t only the immediate pain
Of a rotten job and even worse employers,
It is the acquired pain of never seeming
To do anything right
That has a terrible, wearying energy,
To trouble and torment, to hurt and to bite.

So that even when I go home,
Closing and locking the door behind me,
That old fraud, Failure, sneaks in through the letterbox.
Not sneakily enough, though,
For I can always hear that metal mouth clicking,
Mimicking an excellent letter of acceptance,
Even whilst spitting one more disaster
Into the pockets of my mind,
Where I find it does what it is meant to.

Snips chunks of fear off its fatly fleshiness,
Sometimes leaving a whole arm and leg
Plus a mealy, mean and spiteful mouth behind,
Where it feeds on my career disasters,
Gorges on every cataclysmic fiasco.

2. OUTLINE YOUR EXPERIENCE - ACCURATELY!

Please fill in your experience,
But do not even think of claiming
As a serious work attempt,
A poem, painting, song or riff of guitar,
Or anything such as this
As a legitimate employment.

3. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO ACHIEVE
   IF YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL?

The old girl frowned
As she surveyed the wreckage behind her
And the very uncertain structure
Of the future in front of her,
Aware that some prosperous bodies,
(You know who you are),
Will claim her entire career existence
A train crash of gargantuan proportions,
Whilst others, (I know who you are),
Maintain any created creation
Tumbles such so-called disasters
To Lilliputian dimensions.

4.  PLEASE SUM UP TOTAL CAREER EXPERIENCE

‘Well,’ the old girl scowled,
Irritably surveying it all,
Glaring at the FORM,
Hating every word printed
In Bold, or in the margins palely loitering.

‘Well!’ she said again, then,
Recklessly seized by a fit of giggles,
Handed the wretched thing in,
Pulling from her pocket
A wisp of yellow chiffon,
Which, scented with a really weird incense,
Blew the whole kit-and-caboodle
Out of existence.

Good riddance.

                                               © Gwen Grant

           SLOW SHINE OF CELANDINE

It was on a day that held winter tightly to its bones,
When the whole world was frozen over,
That thin sunshine shone through that bony wood,
Lighting the little trembling ferns
Trembling in the bitter wind,
Gilding the sheath of the bony Birch
Until it shone like silver,
A light to glint and gleam in the new-lit darkness,
To remind us that through the dark times,
In older bones and in the bones of fragile children,
Love has always shone and gleamed and glinted.
Always bringing light to a dark world,
Always bringing love to overcome unimaginably dark forces.

In the dead leaves, in the dark moss,
In the narrow twisted roots of bony trees,
In the slow shine of tiny, tiny celandines all golden and tender,
Beaming beneath the darker and darker leaves,
Their golden heads lifting to the sun,
In the small green buds hidden in their papery sheaths,
Their slow explosions seeking eager life.
Into all this, the ringing of the shuttered bluebells
Send their silent, startling promise that love’s new life
Will always shine into the bony darkness,
Will always defeat it with its full and living sweetness.

                                                       © Gwen Grant

Here are two of my recent poetry postings

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GWEN GRANT
writer