Under a cataclysmic sky
they sheltered from a wind so hot
it burned green leaves to ashes
as they watched in fascinated horror.

They’d not seen anyone else for days
and, having found each other,
had become inseparable companions
lost in a world turned awry.

Behind a crumbling wall they sought refuge
in what once had been a garden,
its solitary tree bearing what they knew
to be the last of mankind’s fruit.

Starving, he plucked it from the twisted branch
and clumsily made her an offering of love.
She smiled sadly at his youthfulness,
but took it nonetheless, biting to the heart.

“You never did tell me your name” she whispered.
“Adam” sighed the boy, “What’s yours?”
“Eve” she replied, brushing away a tear
as acid rain fell on them like venom.

Well I’ve lain in the dirt now for many’s the year,
and I’ve seen cowards fight and I’ve seen brave men’s fear.
I’ve witnessed their laughter, their songs and their tears;
I’m a spent cartridge case on the Somme.

My body is rusted and bent now with age,
ah, but once I was young, full of hatred and rage!
Back in 1916 history turned a dread page;
I’m a spent cartridge case on the Somme.

It was my destiny on the first of July,
as the larks sang above in a cloudless blue sky,
for to sentence a young soldier boy there to die;
I’m a spent cartridge case on the Somme.

Now the guns are long silent, the trenches are green,
and a peaceful sun shines on a poppy-strewn scene.
White headstones cast shadows where heroes have been;
I’m a spent cartridge case on the Somme.

This morning they found me, and out from the clay
I was pulled by a man in the harsh light of day,
just a small souvenir of a tourist’s brief stay;
I’m a spent cartridge case on the Somme.

Awkwardly leaning forward, sloping over damp, brown earth,
stands a young boy’s chiselled memory.
Above rooks caw incessantly in budding branches,
yet little ever grows beneath the great yew’s venerable shadow.

Here beside cold, forgotten, lichened stones,
thin pale weeds strain for scarce obtainable light.
Small insects forage through fallen leaf litter
whilst passing squirrels move swiftly on, sniffing decay.

Lettering barely legible, a long-dead stonemason’s art
serves only now as brief refuge for tiny red mites;
and yet for those with eyes to see a tragic tale is here,
a tale two hundred years in the telling.

“Hic Iacet Poor Benjamin,
who did Fall into some Awful Vat
within his Father’s Manufactory,
whereby he Perished,
Scalded like a Cat.
No more the Trees of Youth he’ll Climb,
for Ten Short Years was all his Time.”

Awkwardly leaning forward, sloping over damp, brown earth,
stands a young boy’s chiselled memory.
Above rooks caw incessantly in budding branches,
yet little ever grows beneath the great yew’s venerable shadow.

Bleak and windswept, my errant ramblings led me to some time-forgotten vale wherein a desolate mansion stood; its mullioned windows pale against the ebbing day, yet from within illumin’d, as by dancing fiends at play.  Fram’d by gaunt trees, stone pinnacles leaned awry, and, through o’ergrown gardens that flanked a ****-strewn pathway to its rotting door, a sleet-cold wind keened for lost souls in torment ‘cross the desolate and cloud-wracked moor.
With dying Phoebus now a blood-red smear upon the western hills, I so resolved to shelter here out of the coming chill.  Foreboding dragged my every step and cawing rooks mocked overhead as if to say: "Go, stranger, for you'll find no welcome here!"  Along the gravelled path I trod and beat the door with blackthorn rod; it opened slowly - in I walked with beating heart and ne'er a thought for all the world I'd left behind, as rain and sleet and howling wind blew shut the door with crack of doom, and left me peering through the gloom.
Around a table there they sat 'midst putrid food and cobwebbed vats of mouldering wine; their bony mouths gaped vacant as they grinned and laughed through time.  I swayed and swooned as in a trance, my own existence thrown by chance into that hellish company, who revelled, foul, Decay’d Gentry!  And then a fearful thunderclap's reverberations brought me back to sanity, I screamed and fled to where the hillsides cried and bled; with staring eye and hair turn’d white, I ran into the raving night.

Grey 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.