An inventor’s paradise—hand built,
secluded down the shadowed track
where the sun’s final rays caress
overgrown foliage and dirt-streaked glass,
fixed into the ramshackle shed.
gray, plastic cord hung on weathered poles
led to a sheltered engine, powered by oil
that shook the walls and rattled its windows
—embedded hinges above their panes hint
at cottage doors from a long-lost home.
an old transistor radio blared the news,
and raindrops echoed off corrugated iron.
His shuffling feet stir wooden shavings,
like snowflakes trapped in a drifting current
—within the refuge his wife never visited.
he crafted gadgets gleaned from dreams
on an old tabletop over cinder blocks—
reclaimed amidst spiders and clutter stacked
on his neighbor’s lawn, bound by intricate
webs, like mortar of his red-brick home.
every winter’s day you’d find him,
rugged up against Jack Frost’s icy siege
—using nimble fingers, knotted with age,
that fashioned a lock that never opened,
and rocking chair with a crooked seat.
in a mind, clouded by advancing age
he lingered in a world of discarded gadgets
and past failures—haunted by severed ties,
he tinkered to keep fading memories alive,
creating—in the inventor’s domain.
C.M. Pickard is a self-proclaimed late bloomer, living in Melbourne, Australia, who enjoys the freedom poetry provides to explore various themes with a raw and powerful honesty—or just have some fun. Her poetry appeared in Wingless Dreamer’s “Hey there Delilah!” anthology and is forthcoming in Pineberry Literary Journal’s second issue.