Where bright blood flowed
across my carven chest,
I now feel only
warm, tropic raindrops.

Impassive priests once stood here,
clad in gold and feathers,
obsidian knives dripping gore.

And now a bored child sulks,
kicking at wet pebbles,
dragged unwilling to my side
by tourist parents.
Turning away, he spits pink
gum into my granite bowl.

There was a time when
I would have had
his beating heart.

Ponderous, she lumbers on
through frozen wastelands,
shaggy body bejewelled  
with a million icy diamonds.

Keen is the wind,
born in the high peaks
and honed to razor sharpness
over groaning, green-blue glaciers.  

Head raised to bitter skies,
she bellows a mournful, unanswered cry
against distant night-black conifers,
bowed and encrusted with fallen snow.  

Long tusks scrape the ground now
in search of hidden mosses,
for hunger is upon her, and she is
oblivious to the hunters’ approach.  

Squat are these bearded skin-clad men,
hair-matted, breath steaming, gesturing quickly,
moving ever closer, surrounding,
stepping out silently,
flint-tipped spears and arrows poised.  

And then the sudden cry of attack!
Again and again the thud of flint into flesh!
Stone into bone!

Shouting wildly, the hunters
circle rapidly, calling on
their long-dead ancestors
to witness the great shrieking beast
brought down in agony;
until at length they halt exhausted,
breath steaming and energy spent.

And as the moon rises above the far horizon
an awful silence falls across the bitter wastes.

For it is done,
and the last mammoth
is no more.

Behind locked doors the Gamblers dare
to cast our fates without a care.  
Like puppeteers they pull our strings
and use us as a child’s playthings.  

Upon the tables of the gods,
with wagers cast at any odds,
they stand us up in serried rows,
then knock us down like dominoes.

By stark winter trees
where snow lays glimmering
beneath a timeless moon,
he howls across bleak centuries.  
Bitter wind, tinged with distant scents,
ruffles thick, grey fur.  
Unfathomable night unfolds,
and he watches with yellow eyes
as thin high clouds obscure,
and then reveal again,
tiny alien stars.

Unnoticed, beside the hedge,
I watched them embrace.
She, body arching, silk snapping,
oblivious in her white-hot passion.

He, all the while, behaving as if drunk,
snared by her feminine wiles,
paralysed by her clinging grasp,
shocked by her sudden forwardness.

I passed that way again today,
but they were gone, those lovers.
All that marked their passing
was his drained husk,
spinning madly in the wind
upon a broken and abandoned web.

Glittering frost-demons howl
across chill voids of endless night.

Dancing auroras cavort insanely
beneath a bone-white leering moon.

Semi-sentient ivy creeps
beside rotting, parasitic mistletoe.

Lost souls hang moaning in torment
from ancient, wind-blasted holly.

The spitting Yule Log burns,
as chestnuts roast in agony on an open fire.

Sand buried parched skull
exposed by excavation,
jaw-gaping in silent
death’s head yawn.

Is eternal sleep so boring?  
Or do you scream
down the centuries
“Let me be!”  

Impotent rage, as trowel
scrapes on bone,
desecrating thy memory
in pursuit of knowledge.

Arcing head over heel,
gleaming redly beneath
roadside halogen lights,
I rise and fall.  

Impact ripples flood outwards
as I cut the still waters
of some nearby pond.

I drift haphazardly now,
past torpid winter fish,
down into cold sedimented depths.  

The outer world soon becomes
a distant memory as I settle quietly
in a small cloud of softly rising mud
amongst dead and forgotten things.

Unwanted by the hand
that caressed me, I am a pariah,
spurned by he who used me once to ****.  

And I, even tempered,
my body honed to perfection,
can now only look forward
to corrosion’s living death.

By boulder-strewn cold misted ways
I moved in bitter northern lands
where ice once groaned with prophecy
I turned my back on Man.

Beneath Great Shunner Fell I danced
where curlews cry to wake the ******  
I scattered hail upon the ground
by ancient rocks I sang.

I fell, and in my falling turned
so many eyes and hearts and hands
yet Hardraw Force's roaring lays
they'll never understand.

She danced ‘til dawn around the blaze
the ****** cauldron’s steamy haze
disguised her proud and preening stance
her wicked leer, her lustful glance

She coveted her Master’s love
yet he ignored her from above
and so below she envied those
who writhed in their ecstatic throes

So angrily she swore and cursed
her fellow beings, for being worse
than gluttons drowning in their broth
until at last she slept from sloth

A mild, damp breeze blows,
dislodging decayed yellow leaves
that slide along misty currents,
down and down again onto wet,
algae-smeared tombstones.

Behind the church a tired sun sets,
casting vague shadows
across a sodden graveyard
where slugs slide effortlessly
destroying rotting floral tributes.

The old man wipes his brow,
recalling a distant youth
when sharp frosts chilled October’s bones,
and keen, bright stars twinkled
beneath a bleached and bone white moon.

Unseasonable winds never blew back then,
not when he stole apples
from the vicar’s bursting shed,
laughing with his pals as holy fury
raged behind diamond panes!

Standing by the open lych-gate,
he mused how times have changed.
Lost innocence of youth?  You can keep it!
He’d seen his own grandchildren laughing at him,
reflected in the corner-shop windows.

The old man sighed at his ***** suit,
his mildewed shoes and faded plastic buttonhole.
His memory wasn’t all that good,
and he didn’t get out much these days.
Was it really a year since they’d buried him?

Lying supine on a child’s bed,
new sunlight plays upon her golden ringlets
as another day awakes

Bright blue eyes blink at the new morning;
she sighs at the sound of
grown-ups making breakfast.

Afraid to rise, she clutches the duvet
and asks her Maker for the millionth time,
“Why am I so?”

Throwback!  Alien!  Changeling!  Freak!  
How cruel the spoken word.  
Insults hurled - or whispered in fear . . .

Ah, but “One in a million!” her mother proclaims,  
“So great a heart!  So great a spirit!”  
If only she knew.

Angelina smiles a bitter smile,
and pushes her tiny face deep into the down-filled pillow.  
She begs for death, and whispers “I am nothing.”

Bitter is the wind tonight,
ruffling tawny feathers
as silent owl swoops low
to snare oblivious vole.

Bat flits haphazard beneath dark boughs;
***** watches sly from hidden thicket,
scenting reckless rabbit, hapless hare.

By sunken ponds where old gorse rustles
alongside tired hawthorn,
snail writes glimmering messages
in liquefying mud.

And along byways lit by a golden moon,
polished bright by passing rags of cloud,
I walk homewards through cold centuries.

Cold the day begins in earnest
Gathering the mist at sunrise
Magpie screams as thin beam strikes him
Keen of eye and black of feather
Crow in thicket calls his brethren
Mist arises deep in valley

Fallen petals lie in tumult
Beaten down by squall that shook them
Bramble, precious jewels wearing
Berries black that shine like glory
Blowing over endless hillsides
None may tell the north wind’s story
Dancing in the sighing branches
Casting leaves of oak and willow
Ash and beech and long-shanked rowan
Bough and twig and fallen acorn
Squirrel hoards for bitter future
Whispers tales of coming Winter

Green is now a fading memory
Leaves lie crimson, brown and golden
Ripe and awful apples moulder
Boar lies sleeping fat and sated
Mushroom blooms on rotting deadwood
Nightshade sways on tumbled walling
Fern grows dense by water running
Down by where the gravestones standing
Tell of those whose lives are ended

Clad in moss and superstition
Watching over generations
Bends the old and twisted yew tree
Shakes and laughs with storm-wracked holly
Waiting for the day of reckoning
Biding time through mankind’s folly
Hears All Hallows Eve a-beckoning

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.

He switched off the TV and turned to his wife;
“That's the worst news report that I've seen in my life!”
She tidied their supper away and she said,
“I’ll be dreaming of that when we’ve long gone to bed.”

“Did you see all that famine, starvation and drought?
Well it sure makes you think what this world’s all about!
Global warming and climate change melting the poles;
I just wish someone used some pollution controls.”

He nodded and sighed as he straightened the chairs;
“Can’t believe all that bloodshed caught me unawares!
It’s just seems there’s a war every place that you look;
Religion and greed?  Hell, they’ve written the book!”

With his arm round her shoulder they looked down below
as the Moon bathed the Earth in a silvery glow.
In her cute alien ear then she heard his grim mutter;
“Here we are in the stars looking down at the gutter.”

We came out of Africa,
10,000 hominids
looking for a better place.
We travelled north and east and west,
always searching for somewhere
that we could call our very own.
We walked and ran,
we hunted and gathered,
we lived and died and had our being
until uncounted generations passed,
and then, praise be,
the world and everything
within, without, was ours!
But why, if this is so,
my modern band of squabbling brothers,
are men so different now?
Some black, some white,
some red, some yellow?
Some chance of peace!
With increasing childish rage
it seems some have forgotten that
we all came out of ‘Africa’
before it even had a name -
And that we came TOGETHER

By green and windblown rippled slopes
where cattle graze in summer sun;
beneath blue skies when larks sing shrill
and rabbits by the hedgerows run.
When meadowsweet and columbine
bedeck the lea like ocean foam;
we soft return like shadows lost
to seek our old ancestral home.

Within the tree-lined borderlands
we wait until the day is done;
‘til passing fancies leave us be
and once again our time is come.
When doors and gates are closed and locked
we slip within as night winds roam;
and talk in whispered secrecy
of times in our ancestral home.

No more within cold fireplace
do fallen logs burn bright and fair;
from panelled walls in sullen oils
dark portraits of the long-dead stare.
On bowing shelves of oak repose
forgotten tales in leathern tome;
unread by men for centuries,
hid deep in our ancestral home.

And through the marches of the night
we drift from room to balcony;
recalling days of childhood lost,
the laughter of sweet memory.
Yet all too soon we must be gone
‘ere birds again chorale the dawn;
and disappear like shadows soft
that fly from our ancestral home.

Dying day in late October
Gaunt the trees and stark the twilight
Crow and raven perch now sated
Worm now rises in his seeking
Fox and badger sniff the death scent
Here where salmon stream bends crooked
Spilling over moss-grown weir-side
Past the Roman Wall now broken
Down where altars lay forgotten
Came the young and mighty warlord
Sword in sheath like moonlight gleaming
Torque at neck like sunlight golden
Riding with his band of brothers
Hawk on wrist and hound at fetlock
Riding to his death at Camlann
Waiting were the painted foemen
Hid in ambush deep in forest
Blood-red now the river running
Stained with gore from many war-men
Lying slain in trampled bracken
Fallen are the leaves of autumn
Great oak weeps with tears of resin
Pierced where wayward arrow struck her
Shielded are her scattered acorns
Covered by the bodies tumbled

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.

Well I woke up this morning and heard all the news;
There was none of it good, seems to me.
So I turned off the radio and went back to sleep,
And I dreamed how the future might be.

From an orbiting space station somewhere above,
the newsreader’s emotions were mixed;
She smiled through her tears, “Hallelujah, my friends,
The big hole in the ozone’s been fixed!”

“Oh, and hey, by the way” she continued to say,
“Pollution’s a thing of the past;
Contaminants no longer poison our seas,
Heavy metal’s no more than a blast!”

“There’s enough food for everyone everywhere,
And a pleasant mild climate for all;
There’s no more povertee, because everything’s free,
Have a drink on the house, have a ball!”

“Religion and warfare have all disappeared,
You can do what you like, no one cares;
Just keep the place tidy and put out the cat,
And make sure you have clean underwear.”

Then my sad old alarm clock, it brought me right back
As the snooze button started again;
If I didn’t move soon I’d be late for my work
Spreading hatred and terror and pain.

I wonder if someday, he thought,
perhaps someone will maybe notice
that I stood here?

He stared across the endless,
quaking mudflats,
steaming beneath a hot, young sun.

As his feet began to slowly sink,
he crushed some lowly creature
gasping for breath beneath his heel.

Sighing at all creation and the report
he must now send to his superiors,
he unwittingly left his mark.

By green and windblown rippled slopes
where cattle graze in summer sun;
beneath blue skies when larks sing shrill,
and rabbits by the hedgerows run.
When meadowsweet and columbine
bedeck the lea like ocean foam;
we soft return like shadows lost
to seek our old ancestral home.

Within the tree-lined borderlands
we wait until the day is done;
‘til passing fancies leave us be
and once again our time is come.
When doors and gates are closed and locked
we slip within as night winds roam;
and talk in whispered secrecy
of times in our ancestral home.

No more within cold fireplace
do fallen logs burn bright and fair;
from panelled walls in sullen oils
dark portraits of the long-dead stare.
On bowing shelves of oak repose
forgotten tales in leathern tome;
unread by men for centuries,
hid deep in our ancestral home.

And through the marches of the night
we drift from room to balcony;
recalling days of childhood lost,
the laughter of sweet memory.
Yet all too soon we must be gone
‘ere birds again chorale the dawn;
and disappear like shadows soft
that fly from our ancestral home.

Unnoticed, beside the hedge,
I watched them embrace.

She, oblivious in her white-hot passion,
body arching, legs flailing, silk snapping!
He, all the while, behaving as if drunk;
snared by her feminine wiles,
paralysed by her clinging grasp,
shocked by her sudden forwardness!

I passed that way again today,
but they were gone, those lovers.

All that marked their passing
was his drained husk,
spinning madly
upon a broken, abandoned web.

Wheeled around in a pushchair,
an innocent child
stares out at the world
with a sticky-faced smile.
A day at the seaside
with ice-cream to eat;
how it melts in the sunshine
and drips on her seat.
“Oh no, look at Ellie!”
her mother exclaims;
“She needs her mouth wiping,
she’s covered in stains!”
But Ellie just giggles,
her small gooey hands
are now grasping her bib,
she cannot understand
that one day in the future,
a lifetime away,
she’ll be taken again
down along the same way,
for a day at the seaside
with ice-cream to eat;
it will melt in the sun
and drip down on her seat:
And she’ll need her mouth wiping,
again and again,
when she’s on medication
to ward off the pain;
staring out at the world
with a bland vacant smile,
pushed around in a wheelchair,
an innocent child.

Thin, cold air,
bright sunlight.
Faint clouds border pale,
empty skies.
Ancient stones lie tumbled.
Vast, silent ruins
of a forgotten age.

An iridescent beetle
scuttles down
through cracked strata.
What cataclysm occurred here?
What distant cosmic dream
became unspeakable
nightmare?

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 gloomy 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.

It was awfully considerate
of him to be here,
and beneath dreaming spires
he knew he had nothing to fear

Eating apples and oranges,
druids and dwarves
riding bicycles everywhere,
milling about on the wharves

The elephant’s fizzing
away in the park,
leaving Arnold to play
all alone with himself in the dark

Oh Emily, Emily,
where is she now?
Riding Julia’s nightmare,
or milking the pantomime cow?

The scarecrow stands waving
goodbye to all that,
and in seven slow stages
old Lucifer puts out the cat

Aunt ****** empties
the ashtray away,
and says how she’ll miss all
his idiosyncratic ways

The Winnower sorts all
the wheat from the chaff,
and with a spin of the grindstone,
the Madcap will have the last laugh

I walked through dank and dripping woods,
a sullen stream for company;
whilst thunder rolled in distant hills,
for all the world was dead, save me.

Oppressive summer heat made sweat
drip from my brow as on I trod;
dark rolling clouds, humidity
had stifled birdsong, silenced God.

Long miles to go, light fading now,
a moss-grown bridge came into view;
to cross it must I make my way
back home to those I loved and knew.

Fern-framed, I saw her standing there
with raven hair and pale white  face;
her shapeless dress merged with the mist
that rose in tendrils from the race.

I started crossing that old span,
and walked towards her, brave and bold,
yet shivered as we passed mid-stream;
“Good day” she said - my blood ran cold.

And when I reached the other side
I turned to see where she might be;
but there was no one anywhere,
for all the world was dead, save me.

Life is a gift.
Gratitude for what remains
Is more helpful than resentment
For what’s been lost.

Our days are wicked short
And terribly beautiful.

All we’ve got is this one breath,
And if we’re lucky,
We get another.

“They believe everything they read,
but they don’t understand a word of it”

yeah, right . . .

“They say the world was created in six days,
but never worked a day in their lives”

that’s so true . . .

“They say that Earth is the centre of everything,
but they’re at the centre of their own universe”

so I’m told . . .

“They say a lot of things,
but they’re so busy talking that they don’t listen”

guess so . . .

“I’m telling you, Lucifer,
we should’ve stuck with the lizards”

….. and with that God sadly put down the phone.

Hot summer evening and out on the patio
Nikki grins widely and flicks back her hair.
Red wine drips down (stupid Mikey spilt pouring!)
and pools on the stones down by Nikki’s feet, bare.

Mikey has gone off indoors for some smokes now,
leaving her smiling alone in the dusk;
Tom Petty sings about love from the hi-fi
and Nikki considers a long night of lust.

Mikey is back now, his hand on her shoulder,
cigarettes flicker in soft twilit breeze;
out of the shadows a moth flutters wildly,
dancing erratic near crackers and cheese.

Nikki dramatically shrieks like a schoolgirl,
brave Mikey swipes with his blue baseball cap!
Down goes the moth in a torrent of swearing,
battered to death on the neatly trimmed path.

Into his strong arms the killer sweeps Nikki,
carries her off to the bedroom above;
there in a wine-fuelled frenzy of passion,
Mike and his girlfriend make candlelit love.

Radio news on the following morning
tells of a fire in a suburb of town.
Talking head says that the couple had no chance;
died in their sleep as the whole place burned down.

Out where the tape cordons off the burnt ruin,
smoke mingles with windblown ashes and dust;
Nikki and Mikey are joined with the moth now,
blown down the street by a hot summer’s gust.

Hail squalls petulantly
against leaded windows,
as down in the midnight garden
unkempt brambles scratch
at cold night winds.

In the abandoned nursery,
where faded draught-blown drapes
brush dusty toy-strewn floorboards,
a broken rocking-horse moves faintly.

Upon a moonlit stage
where innocence long since died,
a legless teddybear stares
at a blind rag-doll.
A ***** harlequin
slumps drunkenly forward;
a crippled spinning-top
rusts beside a scattered jigsaw,
as mocking rhymes echo
insanely down the years.

Crockery elopes with cutlery,
suicidal mice run out of time,
blackbirds die oven-baked,
and the little boy laughs
to see such fun
as Old King Cole
steals your adult soul.

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 squadron 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.

Bleak is the day,
cold clouds drift miserably
above sodden fields
where hawthorn hedgerows
weep at summer’s memory.

No sun to warm the soul,
no cheer within
the tumbled cot
where sheep now stand
a-sheltering behind old walls.

Dog sniffs damp air,
his collie breath steams and curls
as we secure the gate and make
our long, sleet-ridden
way homeward.

Tonight we shall sit by the fire,
he and I, dreaming
of snow-white lambs,
cornflower skies and
warm, sunlit meadows.

Meantime there’s crackling to chew
and drink to keep away the chill,
for we both know that
the Green Man sleeps,
and that winter is upon us.

Why do ye fight, ye little men,
that strut like ***** afore their hens?
Religion, pride or avarice -
are all wars fought because of this?

So near are ye unto the ground
ye see so little, hear no sound
save childish voices, raised in hate,
as ye proclaim some new estate.

Whilst far beyond this lonely world,
in splendour ‘midst the clouds unfurled,
an angel sadly shakes his head
as new born babes replace the dead.

For men learn little, so it seems,
however long their span of dreams;
On heaven’s maps drawn high above
there are no borders, only love.

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 clean 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, behind the leaves a-turning
Carrion crow watches, waiting for her leaving
Patience is his virtue, soon to know the feeding.

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 grew 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 a 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 grew beneath the great yew’s venerable shadow.

One dreary morn they found me,
stored away from public view
within some time-forgotten annex,
where few dared ever venture
save the morbid, strange or curious.

A label hung around my wrist,
though none could now decipher
words once written bold in ink  
by some long-dead medic’s hand.  
(‘Tis true, a man once consigned me here.)

And so today you see me lying prone
within a white-walled room.
Blue lights glare down upon
my twisted shape, my ravaged torso,
my empty sockets and my grinning jaw.

What tales I could tell them,
these two masked women!
How once, when a child in London Town,
was I drugged and drowned,
then sold to meet the surgeon’s knife!

Not for me, the gracious innocence of death;
not for me, warm tears, soft prayers
upon a flower strewn grave!  
For I fell victim to the cursed Body Snatchers,
sold for thirty silver pieces by the hospital gate.

So now here I lay, rib-cage rent asunder,
vermilion wax pumped hard-set into
cold blood vessels, cranium sawn in half.
I raise my hand to greet you, for
they say I died to further science.