Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, POST OFFICE ETCHINGS: 3. LEICESTER POST OFFICE, by AUSTIN PHILIPS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

POST OFFICE ETCHINGS: 3. LEICESTER POST OFFICE, by                    
First Line: Twin doors swing wide. They close on me, revealing
Last Line: "whisp'ring: ""they'll put you right!"
Subject(s): Etching; Letters; Postal Service; Postmen; Post Office; Mail; Mailmen


TWIN doors swing wide. They close on me, revealing
Armies of letters, serried in array,
Within a Hall, whose high, glass, gas-lit ceiling
Throws back the thudding date-stamp's roundelay:
Where two-score sweating, shirt-sleev'd sorters stand
Astride before their 'boards' while colleagues reap
The harvest of their toil, and come in haste
To carry off each sub-divided heap.
Nor, even then, is rest
For head and hand,
Since, clamouring to the roof,
Goes the aggrieved demand
That those who from the 'Box'
Draw the unending spate—
And, with tumultuous knocks,
Aim to obliterate
The royal face and state—
Should bring "more sto-oof! more sto-oof!"

Dazzled and deafened, for a moment standing,
(Hating the din, the odour and the glare),
I shudder at my fate, and then, commanding
My nausea, I stride ahead to where,
Raised in a sort of pulpit-place, there sits
He whom I sense to be the Overseer,
Make myself known, despise the beast at sight,
See him produce a bottle, swig some beer,
Coax back the cork
With two half-tender hits,
Smack gross lips in delight,
Survey me, and then yerk
Himself to slow, flat feet,
Come clumsily down three stairs ...
He leads me, next, to meet
My colleagues. Stays and glares
A space. Then beats retreat,
Whisp'ring: "They'll put you right!"





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