Beak-Heads

Beak-Heads

 

Beak-heads ogle down on centuries of men,

Watching maidens turn to mildew, and blacksmiths

Go to ground. They line up, champing the arch,

Grinding it to roundness with gritted teeth.

Some are half-dog, stone-slavering, faithful;

Others snarl their claims to a dragon’s lineage,

Coiling their unseen tails around roofbeams,

Holding back the fire. At night, when the doors

Close, one slips out its basilisk tongue to lick

Clean its unblinking eye; another sidles

Up to a corbel, making obscene suggestions.

Stone toenails scrabble in the moonlight

Beneath the clerestory, tap-tapping on the

Pitted masonry. Sometimes, they fight.

The nave is filled with unheard spittings

And snarls. They squabble until dawn, then

Retire, bug-eyed and inscrutable. A flower-

Lady flusters with her duster. Their noses

Do not wrinkle. She stoops with her dustpan,

Sighs, tut-tuts, scoops up a fallen scale.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2012. The pictures show Romanesque beak heads and corbels at Avington Church, Berkshire.

 

Done