The Wall Isn't A Person

The wall, silent, groans
at the impact of a slovenly ball.
It can’t speak back, it’s the excuse
for what the thrower lacks,
who with upstretched
arms, aims for it again.
The wall takes this abuse,
crumbles at each targeted piece of footwork,
the tapped patter, the resounding
full pelt bouncing back,
as brickwork chards to powder.

The child, bored, runs off looking for his
mother elsewhere, he’d begun to build a wall of defence,
brick by brick for when she wasn’t there.
She cleaned, fed and clothed him,
reassured when he did nothing at all,
scolded his arrogance when he did.

No demand, nothing expressed, a silent receipt of every noise,
with frustrated absence of mind, the wall and the ball.
Now a young man, looking at a picture on the wall,
rehearsed, the pleasure fades. But as a ball, reminded of his
former basic needs, society says a mind is not required.

The wall is flat she doesn’t speak back
to his fantasy with an absence of mind.
He recalls the frustration when the child was denied.
All is confirmed, make a noise against the wall
it’s pay-back for an earlier meagre time.

Over the road, in the pub, mates, sisters,
brothers, wives and kids, winners, losers
and a not so friendly sexist goad.
Who will be his scapegoat?
Suggestive images leer, urging his body
towards callous, over-arching or trivial need,
and nobody’s there but him, looking at the
pictures on the wall, which fall to waste.
It’s become a habit to look at things, expecting
a service to bring satisfaction in haste.

Outside he searches unfulfilled,
he stares and gapes at a pitiless picture on the wall,
looking back at nobody there, just talking to his ball.
From the window, he hears women talk,
they laugh, love, hate, resist and negotiate,
and he’s confused, he’s missed it all.
You can make a noise against the wall
no matter how the brickwork falls,
but the picture on the wall is you,
you are the sacrifice, a thrown
away appetite.