The Secret

Beyond the book ends of conversation

Well mannered, gentle in ebb and flow

Skeletons, holed-up in hard to reach cupboards

Laugh at their master’s voice

On the outside all seems middled

Straight lines with no kinks

Vanilla lives where only the garbage stinks

But not far from the guarded gates of insipia

Just below the waterline of words

There is ugliness, there are dirty hands

For we all bury secrets in the quiet of the night

Fearful of the day our deeds may come to light

For some, the secret is monstrous

A chamber of horrors, with no visitors bar a penitent priest

But for most of us the demon is benign

A wriggly, niggly thing without teeth or claws

Yet, we tremble, wait for the guilty finger to settle

And wide-eyed vultures to pick at our mettle

Till the unmentionable is mentioned, the hidden revealed

Then wives cry, sons disappoint, friends lower their eyes

But who is intact, who amongst can claim Lincoln’s truth

Or Jesus’ perfect divinity, not one of us

For we all bury secrets in the quiet of the night

Fearful of the day our deeds may come to light