corvine politics

 

The crows are very vocal today.

Their caws cause me to glance up,

As like black ink characters

Painted on a pale blue sky,

They fly along and across the street,

Back and forth, in and away.

I know their kind, it’s like mine,

Ruthless, intelligent, and incredibly social.

I know that they can summon each other

To form flocks when they need to.

I have seen them mass thirty strong

To shout abuse

At an owl hiding behind leaves.

They can form squadrons

To harass herons.

And sometimes they gather together

As a black parliament

In the hilltop tree.

Do they agree there  to depose old king crow?

Does a feathered delegation tell him

That his rule is ended?

I sit earthbound and wonder

As corvine politics goes on,

Way above my head.

nautical seagull stuff

 I floated through winter

On a river of booze

And washed up in spring

Like a castaway on a rock,

Staring up confused

A cloudy sky

Waiting for swifts to arrive.

But I only see seagulls

Wheeling above

Screaming and laughing derisively

At my self-pity

Whilst people are entombed alive

Beneath the bombarded steelworks

I can make up all this nautical seagull stuff.

But I can’t imagine what that’s like.

down the hill

 

I ride down the hill to the hospital

In the ambulance,

That follows the hearse,

Wondering which vehicle

Will take me home again.

The needle enters the arthritic knee,

Steroid and painkiller are pumped in.

The invasion crosses the border

And there is no anaesthetic for that.

I am old and

After an uneventful life

One part of my body after another

Starts to fail,

But I have the consolation of knowing,

That I have never ordered younger people

To go out and fight and die.

My refugee tomato plants

 My refugee tomato plants

Have been suddenly and forcibly moved

From the warm, safe, place of their birth.

They have been placed in strange containers,

And  forced to move,

At the whim of a power

That they cannot communicate with,

Or understand.

They have been singled out,

And selected

For arbitrary reasons.

Pulled out of their native soils,

Leaving ripped root tendrils behind.

Then planted separately

Into new colder, strange places

And left to regrow their roots

As best they can

Or perish alone in exile

Kim’s failed dream

The fascists’ canon roared,

And Kim Philby saw

Their impact

On blocks of workers’ flats.

That sight confirmed his intent

To betray his class

To build a better way of life for all.

A century later,

History repeats 

Like a bad tune,

Playing over and over,

On a broken machine, 

As the inheritors of Kim’s failed dream

Bombard workers’ flats.

Who knows what will grow

From the ruins in Ukraine,

Flowers of hope?

Or poisonous thorns and spores

Of the virus that makes humans kill

Each other

Again and again and again?

Chicken Kiev

 Old man lies in bed, sleepless,

Listening to the radio voices

That, late at night, can lull him to sleep;

Talking of cricket matches, or bringing

Stories, music and recipes from far-off places.

But the radio voices aren’t comforting tonight,

The Old man turns over and tries to sleep

Because nightmares might be better

Than listening again

To voices of desperation and

defiance in the face of fear.

He’s heard them before

Calling from the Czech lands

As the tanks rolled in.

Young man went out to shout

In the street outside the Russian embassy.

He can’t even do that now.

So he just has to listen

To the ingredients describing the recipe

For Chicken Kiev.

Missing mice

 I miss the mice I murdered,

Now my flat feels flat and

The silence makes me feel alone.

No more scurrying in dark corners,

I’m the only one at home.

But I am the sole oligarch here,

I had to protect my realm,

If you shit amidst my shopping

Death will be your doom.

You tried to eat my porridge oats

So I laid poison pills for your rodent throats

You ate them and you died.

I won’t lie I never cried.

But the silence makes me feel alone.