Nailing It

That’s the sound of unpractised hammering:
Different from a nail hit hard, straight, head-
To-head, with none of the light repetitive
Clinks. And now, over the fence, the levering
Squeak speaks of the nail drawn out: its slot
The risk of diverting the next from true.

All this, for me, is merely vicarious experience –
The creation of something from nothing
Or, it may be, nothing from something –
A chance of perception knocked into thought:
Thus the mind drives itself into every event
Inserting its knowledge, belief, supposition.

Listening, I bring to mind a leather-aproned
Carpenter – sunburned, sleeves rolled high –
In an exercise of unerring accuracy, hammering
Home point after point in the whole reality
Of human building: lessons for me no less than
For the efforts of my neighbour or the child.

The precision in handling a hammer and
Nails may be no great matter in the human –
And a child’s lack of mastery less, although
It has the beauty of innocence – yet we are
Formed by our chosen applications, judging
Ourselves, perhaps being judged, accordingly.

Harold Jones

Harold Jones is a New Zealander, educated at Cambridge University, where he was awarded an Exhibition to read English. His poetry has been widely published in UK and NZ literary journals. He has been a prize-winner in national UK and NZ poetry competitions, and, as a lyricist, in the UK Songwriting Contest, the largest such event in the world. A selection of his work in AUP New Poets Four (Auckland University Press, 2011), drew the UK review, “this excellent poet, a kind of Ted Hughes crossed with Bukowski,” with a further selection, Curriculum Vitae (Xlibris, 2014), reviewed in NZ as “downright incredible.” His work has won the acclaim of pre-eminent critics and poets: among them, Al Alvarez, “I like the elegance and control, the drive to say something rather than just to cut a fashionable figure," and Ted Hughes, “I hear a real voice, a real movement of mind cutting through resistances.” In the US his poems appear in Merion West and VoegelinView.

Nailing It

That’s the sound of unpractised hammering:
Different from a nail hit hard, straight, head-
To-head, with none of the light repetitive
Clinks. And now, over the fence, the levering
Squeak speaks of the nail drawn out: its slot
The risk of diverting the next from true.

All this, for me, is merely vicarious experience –
The creation of something from nothing
Or, it may be, nothing from something –
A chance of perception knocked into thought:
Thus the mind drives itself into every event
Inserting its knowledge, belief, supposition.

Listening, I bring to mind a leather-aproned
Carpenter – sunburned, sleeves rolled high –
In an exercise of unerring accuracy, hammering
Home point after point in the whole reality
Of human building: lessons for me no less than
For the efforts of my neighbour or the child.

The precision in handling a hammer and
Nails may be no great matter in the human –
And a child’s lack of mastery less, although
It has the beauty of innocence – yet we are
Formed by our chosen applications, judging
Ourselves, perhaps being judged, accordingly.

Harold Jones

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That’s the sound of unpractised hammering: Different from a nail hit hard, straight, head- To-head, with none of the light repetitive Clinks. And now, over the fence, the levering Squeak speaks of the nail drawn out: its slot The risk of diverting the next from true.

All this, for me, is merely vicarious experience – The creation of something from nothing Or, it may be, nothing from something – A chance of perception knocked into thought: Thus the mind drives itself into every event Inserting its knowledge, belief, supposition.

Listening, I bring to mind a leather-aproned Carpenter – sunburned, sleeves rolled high – In an exercise of unerring accuracy, hammering Home point after point in the whole reality Of human building: lessons for me no less than For the efforts of my neighbour or the child.

The precision in handling a hammer and Nails may be no great matter in the human – And a child’s lack of mastery less, although It has the beauty of innocence – yet we are Formed by our chosen applications, judging Ourselves, perhaps being judged, accordingly.

Harold Jones

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Subscribe to VoegelinView via Email

That’s the sound of unpractised hammering:
Different from a nail hit hard, straight, head-
To-head, with none of the light repetitive
Clinks. And now, over the fence, the levering
Squeak speaks of the nail drawn out: its slot
The risk of diverting the next from true.

All this, for me, is merely vicarious experience –
The creation of something from nothing
Or, it may be, nothing from something –
A chance of perception knocked into thought:
Thus the mind drives itself into every event
Inserting its knowledge, belief, supposition.

Listening, I bring to mind a leather-aproned
Carpenter – sunburned, sleeves rolled high –
In an exercise of unerring accuracy, hammering
Home point after point in the whole reality
Of human building: lessons for me no less than
For the efforts of my neighbour or the child.

The precision in handling a hammer and
Nails may be no great matter in the human –
And a child’s lack of mastery less, although
It has the beauty of innocence – yet we are
Formed by our chosen applications, judging
Ourselves, perhaps being judged, accordingly.