Winter’s wrath cut
deep, honing pain
on the stonewashed plots
of harrowed frost.
Her silvered birch,
flayed, *****, and
shadow staining
the adamantine lake,
heavy bound, weighed
harsh with the rugged flocks
of cursing fowl.
Its banks wearied with
age-weathered cottages
of gawking windows
frowned with mouldy thatch
and chimney stacks coercing
the hoary blenched clouds
of burning turf through
an ashen cast morning
of roused jackdaws
arguing into the hard grey
and the Sunday knell
of bells glooming
out of the night wept
frozen from the
dead end dreams of slumber
banishing into haggard yawns.

The open-doored cowshed
steaming in masticated belly cud
and she as dead
as the cold pounded mud floor.
The steel clutched clothes hanger
still wrought hardened to her hand
in the after-botched gore
and soured out milk
splattered frozen
from a kicked bucket
toughening to the temperament
of death’s residues
bloodily intruding
on the tethered ruminants
chewing in the dank-ridden air
of turned silage
and the grind of
shed rats
harrying the winter felled flesh,
gnawing into the midday sun
and the thawing maiden’s
unwanted accursed *******
struggling into decay,
the unsanctified earth
and the condemnations
of the pulpit-pounding
Sabbath man
scathing over
the fires of hell
and his livid-licking brethren.