Lunchtime
News about the news:
Observe basking sharks,
lost lopsided lilies,
slumping in the lagoon
pump waters from people’s homes
busy Nessies, little lochs,
tiny monsters of the shallows.
Waterlogged logs sink from sight,
nervous wrecks shiver
in Lazy Bones’ Locker.
No way, Jose!
Smart Alec McMackerel.
Wessex is the wetland of Alba.
Let it drown.
Paint your bum blue.
Join us: Stay dry.
See Soggies flood North in droves.
Border turnpike takes groats only.
Frack Ben Nevis.
Rip off Groatland.
Yawn. Nodding off…
Done in after all the sleep and squatting…
bills, deeds, duties, musts,
cant’s, coulds, shoulds, woulds;
daydawdledoodles.
Doze snooze nap?
And why not?
Afternoon off again…Tut, tut, tut.
Happy is the man who can bear the things he cannot change – Schiller
Each time insurgent
Wind surges spank opulent
crimson drapes and naughty
gusts arouse dormant
gooseberries on exposed,
soft wanton thighs all sigh
Lush,
chocolate ground juice
breaches ripe knapsacks,
glibly squirting,
soiling deep plush pile rug.
On
garish cushions we float maculate:
spoiled flotsam; jetsam of anarchy,
Two headed orphans
scowling quadrophrenes
brazen twisted Sisters scream.
Slow going, going slow, sigh blue, going round
Blow a bubble, paraffin and monocle, pursed lipstick lip
Bigger, jelly heavy bubble, floppy.
Heavy air: barometer finger low, rain and fruit
Plop!
On the rug, spectral petrol wobbles, see through puff-ball
Houses cypress frond
Watch, watch and…
Pop!
Blow another?
Laters
Wind has gotten up,
must have overslept.
On the coals up north all night if you ask me:
stopping trains;
leaving bad leaves on the lines,
causing hazards,
hazards strewing huge bleak,
Elkless causeways.
Whistling down closes, windswept
cloisters, alleys and avenues,
soft, flyblown parades and promenades.
The North and the people are tough, soft things.
They can take it, like cockneys in the Blitz
or Peter Sarstedt in empty Biarritz.
The Rev Nice-Grub paused life struck
shopping list of savoury dainties before her
incomplete: savoury quails eggs, spiced cheeses…
Holy music meandered ox-bowed
midlife muddy water curved solidly,
strong, steady laps undercut the bank
vile, grass clod bays and inlets for voles
cans and ducks. Captives get marooned
on a cut off clump, excised by wake and wind,
and wave forlornly: we wave back, hollow eyed.
Our off white hull stirs large laps as it hums past,
scary aftermath loosens more sods that collapse
under the webfoot gait of ducks and swans
and wellyboots of anglers and toddlers
leaving small gashed inlets for thin quick snakes.
…crudites, nice dips, potato chips, nuts.