7 billion of us
that’s a lot of mouths
and tummies to fill

You’re a farmer in Drought Land
(How did I get here?* you ask yourself;
How do you farm dry land? we ask you)
and the weeds grow and your crops die
You need water, water, Hard Rain, plenty of Solid Rain
and the chemical engineer
Velasco of Mexico, he got just that for you
It’s powder, baby –
looks like sugar, honey;
10g of Hard Rain absorbs a Liter of Water
and it’ll stay there on your land for a year at the least

7 billion of us
that’s a lot of mouths
and tummies to fill

it doesn’t evaporate and only the roots can drink it
It’s Hard Rain going to come, baby -
that’s the promise -
it’s Hard Rain on your Dry Land;
it’s absorbent material -
this polymer, yeah baby, it’s called
potassium polyacrylate
and it’s coming to a dry land near you
it’ll lie on your land, and it’ll feed your crops
and you can sell your veggies to me
and that’ll feed me and my family
we’re just too many mouths to feed, you know,
all the 7 billion of us, baby,
on Planet Earth, on Blue Blue Earth

and maybe I’ll buy some Hard Rain myself too
for my own little Eden in my backyard
Oh, it’s Hard Rain, Hard Rain gonna fall on us all, baby
It’s Hard Rain going to come, baby -
that’s the promise
it’s Hard Rain on your Dry Land

*7 billion of us
that’s a lot of mouths
and tummies to fill

Grandad Cat
curls his tail
and wants to tell a tale
to his GrandKits Cats
He claws them before him
and he meows a catchy tune
that he shall
tell them a tale

But little Toby
he purrs:
*No, Grand – you're such a bad story-teller
cos you only have
one tale

…meow, meow, meow…

nine cats in a boat
and one jumps off
and there’s none left
in the boat in the same instant –
anyone going to ask why?

No, this is no conundrum
in nuclear physics
It’s basic cat life -
they were all copycats

…meow, meow, meow…

A black force erupted into your sight;
male, small and wet, it would be the last.
The candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Nurse came around nine, you felt some delight,
ready to relive the pain from the past:
a black force erupted into your sight.

Time dribbled by and then with all your might
cried for the child to arrive and fast:
the candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Years before, a thought, ‘Will mine be alright?’
Like Christmas Eve, a present in the post:
a black force erupted into your sight.

No wave of love upon him in the light,
what you wanted now here, but at what cost?
The candlestick kid at five to midnight.

Come morning the daughter, intrigued and bright
meets your son, awake after his first rest.
A black force erupted into your sight,
the candlestick kid at five to midnight.

There writ in ancient sanscrit text
The answer plain to what lays next,
The answer writ in common tongue
So aged could understand with young,
A secret held within the grasp
Of Kings and Prince of Priests of past,
A secret hidden to confound
All humankind from fact profound
To keep it locked, withheld secure
By gloating greed with goal impure.

Bound in parchment yellow gold
And tied with thong of leather old,
Letters writ in feeble blend
So frail that few could comprehend,
A revelation wrought so hard
That weak might well slice wrist with shard.
I charge thee all take hold within
To gird thyself for message grim........

"Beyond the end there lies a void
A pitch black nothingness employed
In silence, nay beyond all sound
With deathly stillness all around.
Nothing felt and nothing seen
No sense of good or rank obscene.
Not up nor down, no smile nor frown.
There's no tomorrow in the air
No brilliant light or horn fanfare
The men in pulpits sold a lie
For at the end we merely...DIE!"

Marshalg
At the Crypt of the Ancestors
10 July 2013

father arrived
with a convincing
deafness
in one ear
a broken pair
of handcuffs
he'd named
the left hand of god-

mother had called him from sleep
with a birthmark my mouth

(poem not for the modest)

1)
Susan is envious about
Mr Ron’s rich-red tomatoes
just over the fence;
and Susan asks how he does it
“Oh,”* says Mr Thorn, “I expose myself
twice daily to the tomatoes
and they blush and so they are red
Try it with your vegetables, Susan”

2)
It’s three weeks later
and Mr Thorn asks over the fence:
“Hey Susan, how are your veggies now?”

“Well,” replies Susan, *“tomatoes are the same
Oh but you should see the cucumbers –
my, how they've grown!”

I still have
the note you wrote,
kissed with your raspberry lipstick,
licked with your bedtime ink.

For years, left to dry
in a drawer, inhaling the dark,
I found it, like a stale apple,
blushing yellow.

I understand the words now,
the loops, the curves, a fairground ride,
that's what we were
before the carpet scorched our knees.

Did you keep the one
that I wrote you?
No, maybe, torn at the top
and stuffed somewhere.

I let your message breathe again,
swallow the days,
this red stain rages upon my eyes,
a note with no writer, how it all fades.