Late October dawning, mist hangs low in woodland
Fading is the season, beech and oak leaves falling
Tangled are the brambles, overgrown and berried
Spider in her leaf-hide, sees her web bejewelled
Drowsy cattle standing, breath and wet flank steaming
Sunrise gleams on water, streamlet coldly flowing
Wasted grasses leaning, trampled under hoofprint
Fern and mosses greening, close by wall of sandstone
Early sings the sparrow, yarrow flowers whiting
Sluggish flies the bee now, nectar scarce inviting
Owl in tall tree sleeping, shuns the day awaking
Fox in earthen breastwork, sated now from hunting
Rabbit sniffs the morning, burrow mouth beguiling
Scent of mould and mushroom, undergrowth pervading
Fallen tree trunk rotting, spotted red with fungus
Naked roots stand grasping, fingers locked in death throe
Down in dew washed meadow, foal lies red and stillborn
Sadly stands the old mare, one year past her blessing
Nevermore to call home her stallion by evening
Hidden in the hawthorn, by blood-red berries dripping
Carrion crow watches, waiting for her leaving
Patience is his virtue, soon to know the feeding.
Sep 20, 2021
Sep 20, 2021 at 2:37 PM UTC
She gazed out through steamy panes
to where rain mirrored
indoor moisture, running down
sheer glass sheets
in tiny light-riven rivulets
to pool in cold futility
on sill and ledge.
She could not remember
how long she'd been here;
indeed, she was not entirely sure
of time’s passage at all,
measuring life merely
by periods of dark or light,
humidity or aridity.
Of course, everyone here
was pretty much the same,
here in this white-tiled purgatory
where endless days merged
into non-existent seasons,
and the world turned slowly
on a rusting showerhead.
A newcomer jostled her suddenly,
anxious for a glimpse
of some fancied nirvana
outside the crying windows;
“Do you come here often?”
he asked hopefully,
trying to peer beyond her.
Scarcely admitting his presence,
she continued gazing
into the abstract distance,
answering as only
sentient slime-mould can;
“Me?" she shrugged,
"I only come here for the condensation."
Jun 25, 2021
Jun 25, 2021 at 1:32 PM UTC
Small hail rattles petulantly
against leaded attic windows.
Below, in untended gardens,
a child's broken swing creaks
where unkempt brambles
scratch at cold night winds.
In the abandoned nursery,
where faded draft-blown drapes
brush toy-strewn floorboards,
a dappled, paint-blistered rocking-horse
sways faintly on a fleeting, moonlit stage.
Where innocence long since died,
a legless bear leers at a blind rag doll.
A jammed spinning-top lies rusting
upon a hopelessly scattered jigsaw.
A ***** Harlequin slumps in depression,
his wanton Columbine gone forever.
From the torn, once gaudy, pages
of a faded, open book,
mocking rhymes echo
insanely down the years.
Crockery elopes with cutlery,
a suicidal mouse runs out of time,
Humpty mimics Lucifer . . .
and a little boy laughs to see such fun
as Old King Cole
steals your adult soul.
Mar 28, 2021
Mar 28, 2021 at 6:08 AM UTC
One day, gasped the Dying Man,
your Empire will be nothing
but a tale in a history book.
Your great cities will lie in ruins,
and your very language
will be dead.
You lie, said the soldier
with the spear,
stabbing upwards.
Mar 6, 2021
Mar 6, 2021 at 11:21 AM UTC
Bleak winds scour empty wastes
where dust devils spin insanely
along bone-dry creek beds.
Above in featureless skies
a blind sun hides behind
a cataract of thin, high cloud.
On the flanks of a long-dead volcano
a flock of small, red finches
takes to the air like a noxious gas.
Small hardy flowers have found a home here,
attracting iridescent insects
that flit like ancient sparks.
And in a shadowed cleft of rock,
hidden from those who would hunt,
a mother guards her mewling cub.
Dark stripes mark tan, lithe flanks
as ever-alert eyes glitter,
hard as the blackest of lava.
Were she capable of mockery,
she might howl in triumph
at those who believe her extinct.
Yet for the present she awaits Mankind’s destruction,
knowing then that the thylacine
will reclaim their ancestral lands.
Nov 24, 2020
Nov 24, 2020 at 2:00 PM UTC
Upon a far and distant world
where silicon's the key,
a great metallic turtle swam
through seas of mercury.
His eyes were red as copper,
and his mind was sharp as zinc;
he dined off silver fishes
and he sometimes paused to think.
"Supposing there's a world someplace
where carbon is the king?
Where seas are made of water,
and where fleshy turtles swim?"
Nov 23, 2020
Nov 23, 2020 at 3:10 PM UTC
A vagabond faints
in a wayside gutter,
a ring of scarlet patches
showing through unclean skin.
A great lord spews red froth
across a bed of linen,
as his lady watches helplessly
through a veil of tears.
A skylark sings high above
a half-ploughed field
where Piers lies choking
in the fresh cut furrows.
A harlequin sprawls
grotesquely swollen,
cap and bells twisted
in a masque of death.
Nov 10, 2020
Nov 10, 2020 at 8:32 AM UTC
Elizabethan manor house
beneath a bleak October sky;
where black crows call from moss-stained trees
and hapless leaves hang where they died.
No breath, nor breeze, despoils the day
that fades now in its lowered gloom;
beset with clouds, a weakling sun
casts little light into the room.
Through mullion windows’ diamond panes
a manicured garden lays;
in muted fading colours now,
with mem'ries of hot summer days.
Electric candles flicker gold,
from panelled walls gaunt portraits stare;
old Lords and Ladies long since dead,
view everyone without a care.
And as the guide concludes his tour
and visitors head for their bus;
a small child glances back to where
he made an ice-cream-spilling fuss.
In black and satin stands a man,
his doublet slashed with crimson fine;
a drooling wolfhound at his side,
he bows in mockery, divine.
Oct 30, 2020
Oct 30, 2020 at 10:24 AM UTC
Gorse gleams yellow
in the setting October sun's rays.
A brisk north-easterly
sends grassy ripples offshore
towards the incoming tide.
Down sloping meadows
an unseen bird cheeps,
it’s call swept out across
the wide blue bay.
Weather-beaten, a fence
stands furloughed,
the summer’s sheep and cattle
now called home to safer pastures.
And I stand facing east
reflecting upon the passing year,
and upon an unknown future.
But of one thing I am certain.
One day my ashes will
join you here for all eternity.
Oct 27, 2020
Oct 27, 2020 at 6:12 AM UTC
She goes to spend a month
(what is time?)
with some forgotten tribe
in the foothills of nowhere;
a slim, blonde ‘celebrity’
playing at being a noble savage
for the sake of hard cash and
some TV channel's ratings.
She arrives to a muted greeting,
small children hiding
behind a mother's ***** skirts..
There will be rain tonight,
even though it is
the season of the rich.
She will sleep on a pallet bed
shared with a 75 year-old woman
(she looks 75 but is only 42,
and has borne seven children,
three of them now dead).
On no! The old woman snores!
And how we laugh at our
western cousin,
cringing at spiders,
flinching at shadows!
Tomorrow she will walk a mile,
to symbolically fetch water
in an old jerry can,
and, hidden en route,
she will allegedly defecate
in the bushes!
See her eat some
vile local delicacy
as the headman's
honoured guest.
She will then be forced,
grinning falsely,
into some tribal dance,
wearing a headscarf and
clapping like a maniac.
And eventually, when they
have enough footage,
the sentence will be over.
"I have learned so much about myself"
she will bleat towards
a smirking, unseen director.
Later, as she climbs into an air-con
four-wheel-drive monster
that will whisk her back to
civilisation, the realisation is
that she never once
asked the tribe
what they thought of her.
Oct 19, 2020
Oct 19, 2020 at 6:13 AM UTC