Amongst the tins of nails and things
Is where Grandad and me
Turned his shed into a
church of masculinity
No female bothered to intrude
into our sacred space
Con tent in manly solitude
or in shit -stained grace
To bacco, oil, and creosote,
this temple's in cense cloth
To perfume piety, wooden walls,
where voodoo gasps must haunt
Where priests sleeper
through bottled meth s,
along with tins of screws
And ancient saws and chisels stayed,
and I never saw him use
This shed was never made for work,
but built for sanctuary
Where we both took communion
of biscuits with our tea
An d I soaked up
crumbs of knowledge
there behind the creaking door
Ex pounded on the day to day
or times before the war
On shelves where ghosts
of laughter slept
Declayed to sooty dust
Time wrapped round those memories,
like moss and creeping dust
But in their sleep the
truth of dream s
seeped into timber wall s
Until by simply breathing in,
each one could be recalled
Intending to rebuild his shed
when Granddad passed away
Dismantled it to turn to dust
till just three planks remained
So one for him, one for me,
one for lives and schemes
that overlap each history
aboard this ship of dreams.