My Rendition of Seamus Heaney's Digging

By Joshua D. Frame

Mon, 22 Sep 2014
  • 453 reads
1 comments
 

Beneath the prints of my fingers
The keyboard sets, where story lingers
 
Outside tinted glass, quiet numbing clinks
When the spade steals into the grave, cheers, drinks
My father, digging. Out I peek
 
Towards the Limp and dirt mound piled near casket
Face sweat streams, night’s work, not once by day  
Recoursing acts with positive motives
Where he was digging.
 
Fine jewlery quite rare, mostly neckties,
Knick knacks, n’often he’d seen jewels gleam in the cracks
Pryed in coffins. Loosened the locks, doddered heels deep
Six feet beneath the sod. His nightly job,
Called it what it was, Mom, that name, rob.
 
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
 
Grandpa’s face on more TV’s in a day
Than any grave digger within the States.
Once carried, steel cuffs, cop car full throttle​
And aired all over the news. He tried to run
Once brought in, then fell to right away
Tasing and bashing brutal, heaving dry
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good grave. Digging.
 
The dead stench of cold boned corpses, the eerie gray
Of stone stencil, the distraught thought of jail
After risked days, no finds, no coin for bail
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
 
Beneath the prints of my fingers
The keyboard sets.
I’ll dig with it.

Certificate 15
Poem

Comments

Submitted by scratch on

 

Just for reference this is Heaney's:

 

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

 

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

 

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

 

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

 

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

 

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

 

 

I really admire how you have taken Seamus Heaney's original poem and used it to create something new and original of your own.   You have gone well beyond pastiche and taken the poetry in an unpredicatble and intriguing direction.  Well done.

If i have a criticism it would be centred on your sixth stanza.  I believe the poem would be just as strong without it.  Certainly an edit would benefit.  Read through a few times and compare it with the poetic language of the other stanzas.  In my (totaly subjective) opinion it wanders into reportage and loses the figurative quality of the other parts.