New Poetry: inside the room

Time for more poetry, this time from Catherine Edmunds who describes herself as "a story-teller who cut-cut-cuts the words until she is left with poems; distillations of story compacted into reflective shapes." We love the punning contemporary cultural references in this piece - it reminds us of John Lennon's In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. You can follow Catherine on Twitter at @cathyedmunds

inside the room
by Catherine Edmunds                     

the thirteen stood inside the room
hats knitted together, beards intertwined
and the one they call Lego Yellow
tore open his chest and gave thanks, and brake it,
and gave it unto them, saying –  nothing.

he wavered, as one on the edge stole away,
threads unravelling
hands clasped across his baldness in shame

the remaining twelve stood motionless, profiles stern
beards carved in stone, checking their hats again and again
for a sign to set upon the one
to tear him apart, brick by brick
with a click-clickety-click, splatter-crash, tumble-down,
all fall down, all fall down-down, deeper and down

but the blasphemer lay on his bed and wept
saying: ‘Where is Barbie, where’s Melton Mowbray,
where’s Mortimer’s pies? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is the London Planetarium?
They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality.
And yet let the name and dignity of Lego stand
so long as it pleaseth God.’

and thus was he forgiven, all the while acknowledging
the King James Bible and Sir Ranulph Crewe,
Donovan and the Quo, lest he be accused of Plagiarism
a Sin for which there may be no Remission.