My ragged wings are black as night, my eyes are cold as sin;
the crows and rooks and magpies and the jays, my nearest kin.
I am a rogue and vagabond, I raid the nests of Man;
I’ll steal their golden trinkets and I’ll take whate’er I can.

Some fools have tried to trap me, and yet others have their guns,
but they who think me stupid little know what’s to be done.
Some others think to bribe me for to leave their crops alone;
I swoop in with my brothers and we take their kernels home!

To superstitious folks who see me perch upon their roof,
a new born babe will follow, for that is the Devil’s truth.
Yet down your chimney should I flit, beware the Reaper’s blade!
Within the year cold death shall come to master or to maid.

So look outside your window now and see what I may do,
If on the weather vane I sit, then rain shall come to you.
But if me and my brothers all do chatter, jack and caw,
then pray we are mistaken, for we tell of coming war.

It stands in the corner,
forgotten by all,
as the fallen leaves gather
in drifts by the wall.

Where the dead grasses lean
through the cold evening mist,
lies the grave of the unknown
Pacifist.

One day, said the dying man,
Your empire will lay in ruins
And your very language will be dead.

You lie!
Shouted the soldier,
Stabbing upwards with his spear.

Harry, Gene and Ivan, Jacques and Lee Kwan Yu,
off to see what they can find amongst the red sand dunes.
Beam back TV pictures for all the folks back home,
show ‘em what it’s really like within the Ruined Zone.

See the crumbling pyramids, the bone-dry river beds,
Elysium’s eroding, a billion years of death.
Just another planet surviving on its dreams,
hologram illusions of things that might have been.

Time to go back home now, rejoin the mother ship,
analyze your findings and evaluate your trip.
Deciphering inscriptions, computer screen gives birth;
green words softly glowing: “Is there life on Earth?”

Hanging motionless
in warm, tropic sea,
sun glints on fin
where diamonds dance.

Ungainly giant,
head without body,
balancing existence,
suspending belief.

A medieval Noah looking out to sea
from a mouldering canvas
wondering if he should have
included mermaids

A rusting astrolabe pointing
at some forgotten constellation
through fingerprint-smeared
and cracked museum glass

A spinster at the wheel
outside her humble thatched cottage
watching whooping cavaliers pass
hunting a dying stag

A plum pudding boiling
in a great copper cauldron
whilst a sweating cook and a
collared tabby cat look on

An inwardly troubled comedian
laughing mirthlessly
over smudged radio scripts
in a cold, empty studio

An ageing mother in an
incongruous yellow t-shirt
staring over half-rimmed spectacles
at three errant sons

An emotionless TV newsreader
reciting the latest disaster
and wondering all the while
if she’ll be there when he gets home

As I was out a-riding over pleasant hills of green,
beneath a sky of cornflower blue where larks sang all serene,
I heard some distant hoof beats drumming loudly ‘cross the land,
and I saw a horseman riding with a bow strung in his hand.

Upon a steed as white as snow he galloped like the wind,
and carried awful knowledge of how oft mankind has sinned.
Upon his head he wore a crown that dazzled like the sun,
and he aimed a headless arrow for to conquer and have done.

Behind him came another on a horse of fiery red;
A mighty sword he wielded as along his way he sped.
I shouted “Where is it you ride, and what’s yon great blade for?”
He laughed and answered, “Always, friend, I take the road to war!”

And as I watched him vanish in the blue horizon’s haze,
a black horse trotted by me with its rider’s eyes ablaze.
He carried rusted iron scales that never more would weigh,
and he named the price of famine that humanity must pay.

The day grew bleak as winter and the green hills turned to grey;
As birds fell dying from the sky, I turned and rode away.
My own horse snorted madly, and his steaming breath did writhe;
And I spurred his pale flanks onward as again I swung my scythe.