Alder Tree

Alder Tree

Alder snakebite bark

Almost adder in colour

Almost has a bark worse than its bite

As a Dog, loyal to the damp wet lands

As a watch dog waiting in water for his master’s return

Almost ‘Alter’ another a changed tree

Made different by a root’s width geometry

Haltered stopped in its snake tracks

Through the river in the swamp

Just like a traveller chosen to stand and stare up

More upward and proper than the wayward willow

More symmetrical like a spiral

Or a cart wheel a Mandala blowing free

Generous with its fruit, and looking brown

And warm with its little lanterns of nut-cones hanging down

Pruner -Somerset Skyline

Somerset Skyline

The look of Apple trees in Winter

Their Spiny fingers

Bud knuckles

Ladders of nearly buds grapple

The cold sky like hooks

Whose black blue bruise

Of storm clouds roll in on the horizon

And they claw at it

Apple trees are thought of so innocently, happily

But Apples were in the Garden of Eden

The knowledge of Good and Evil

The Fruit that gives this knowledge

As alive and promiscuous as anything

World changers

And when I prune them

Am I cutting back the tree of knowledge

Hurting the chances of this bursting secret?

Its branches never fall freely they grapple

Unlike the apple

The limbs of thought like ideas in a brain

Interweave, hook and thread on new neurons

The old memories are cut away

To make room for new

The buds are nodes the chance of new connections

In an infinity of chemical reactions of the air and the tissue

Material of earth is sculpted by the brain tree into its new thought

Its atmosphere of the moment

The pattern of their branch shadows

And the crinkle of their oval leaves underfoot

The pages their ideas are written on

Lying open to the sky

And the precious fruit

Inviting you to try

The Battle of Ham Wall, or alternative places

Ham wall was an ancient pig battlefield. For years wild hogs had crossed tusks on this flat leafless plain. They fought over the one enormous oak that provided acorns for the winning tribe of pigs.

            However, after the great battle of Catcott moor one side, the Curly Whirlies, lost and retreated down onto this more easterly plot. Upon doing this they discovered the Oak tree and so in order to defend this they built an enormously long security wall of peat. Because the wild hogs guarded it through little windows at certain points it then became known as Ham wall.

            The Victorious tribe of Halalumi then made their offensive, because scratching around for bare bones had gone on long enough, they needed and wanted acorns. King Hal ordered the Ham wall that had now dried out over some years, to be torched. The dry summer of the arson and the surprise nature of the attack left the Curly Whirlies frying like bacon and unfortunately crackling too. All that remained was a scar of ashen ground, tusks and pork chops lying hither and tither. The odour of cooked pork and burnt offerings was not to leave the marsh for fifty years. 

Earthworms and DVDs

Earth Worms and DVDs

Two things I do not seem to see

These days

Though like the night you know they’re

Out there somewhere moving

Playing

Re-running the same old pattern

This mineral in that garden

In one end and out the other

You wouldn’t think it had a mother

Earth worms and the film trade

So much garbage regurgitated

Swallowed up remade

Repackaged the resold for re-use

They are the ultimate composters

Recycling what others abuse

Pre-womble dawn, before Nature

Grew a big ‘N’ in the national conscience

Earthworms were living it large

Nobody bothered them down on the farm

Nobody said oh look how good

I want a new one I’ll write a new book

In two years it will be turned into a film

And somebody will be unwrapping the cling film

Then loading it back into the Dvd player

Like their sandwiches they consume

While they act out the worm slayer

And dig in the garden of forgotten stories

And dredge up some rot

From the compost tub of past glories

Left over food beginning to mould

Pass it over here its one that hasn’t been told

Give it to the worms I know they’ll eat it

Any old crap used tins of sardines

A packet of biscuits

Just leave it out and the birds will have it

Well no actually! We’re not all worms

We have feelings when we’re trodden on

We squirm

Don’t throw us your never ending supply of sap

Else you might find these Earthworms

Decide to fight back

You might find your beds infested with snails

Which we have corralled

With our elegant telescopic tails

You may find your bath tubs filled up with pond weed

Your Pumpkin seed bread already gone to seed

But worst of all when you’re relaxing at night

You’ll find yourself strapped to your armchair unable to fight

And the one diet you’ll know

Yet you’ll know it ain’t right

Will be to watch your own DVDs

On a loop repeat like in flight

This is what you’ve given us

This diet of earth worms

Learn to read a new book why don’t you

So that your script words

Are not food for worms

The spit of birds

Who desert you