honey buzzard,

 Oh honey, oh buzzard, oh honey buzzard,

Glide over serene in a cold blue winter sky.

Honey why do they name you buzzard, honey?

Since you do not buzz,

Like an untimely woken wasp queen,

Or an annoying immature bluebottle.

What meat are you seeking to spy,

As you ride the wind over London?

No bees nest yet,

Only ant people move below you,

In buses, cars and lorries

Carrying stuff which will be thrown away,

Collected recycled, reloaded

And carried away to be remade

And carried around again.

Sail over it all honey buzzard.

Come back again

To find the bees and the honey

When all the stuff has gone.

GNARLY

 Is this the time to make words rhyme tightly?

Make them curve and curl, twist and swirl,

Round about each other and in and out?

Over and under, knotting untying and retying

Into chains, ropes, networks and skeins.

Like snakes, ladders and dragons,

Carved into a stone or a or a prow,

Following contours like ploughed lines,

Cut into soil, wood , bone and stone.

Sunlight sets me off.

Sunlight sets me off.

It could burn you to a crisp,

Or drive you mad, before it killed you

With dehydration and/or heat exhaustion.

Yet even on a freezing day,

When pavements are punctuated

By static streaks of frozen water,

Sunlight sets me off,

Like coming up unexpectedly

On a wondrous consequence-free drug.

I’m high laughing and smiling

At silly ideas;

But, if and only if,

I’ve got somewhere warm to sit

And gaze through double glazing

At cold, cold sunlight outside.