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

Puffins

Puffins on Sanday

The gulls are gliding

The cormorants plunge

The sea is sliding

And squeezing the sponge

The rocks are like cakes

Absorb and crumble

Soak and bake

In the shores rumble

The cliffs of morn

Are wild and free

With the whiffs of a storm

And the breath of the sea

And the puffins dangle

Ship-worn and mangle

Where the white veins bleed

Unearned sworn in profile

Against the gathering cloud’s mobile

They swarm like bees

Agile turgid, tight of body

Like the fish they eat

Rainbow biters

Crunching the colours of the silver scales

Heathland

In the supine truth of his mercy

In the lauded king of the earth

The sallow willow wallows

Down in the mouth

The peat mounds sting in the rain

And damp bark shines black against itself

Sordid sinews of brambles

Conspire to bring

The snakes from beneath the beaten panel

And cowering low the bindweed winds

Soundless to the Sires’ minds

Of the headless hawks

And scruffy crows

Which spread across the old rail road

And chainless seas

Which toss and turn

Far beyond the chalice stone

To comb the pond

And pound the bone

Of dead saints as of badgers

Their scent of flowers pearling crust

In the hallowed graveyard’s dust

And they cheered in transient sun rays trust

That call them to their meaning

And far beyond gravels cliff

That gives rise to the ghostly mist

A fern is praised

As a dew lipped kiss

And candle light draws another Eden

Petitudes

The Darling Pets of May

May:

The legs of the Elephant

Not scare at a mouse

The eyes of a cat

Not burgle a house

The ears of a rat

Not abode any louse

Nor the fever of a dog

Run hot as a spouse

May:

The nose of a rabbit

Be tickled by a trout

The kindness of a kitten

Be smitten by a stout

The radar of a Russian

Be rattled by a lout

Or the uncle of a Kingdom

Be carbuncled by a bout

May:

The hubris of a herbivore

Be preyed on by a quail

Or the vertigo of an eagle

Be debedded by a snail

The notion of a cuckoo

Be knocked by a tail

Or the hailing of a whale

Be disgruntled with a nail

May:

All these and likewise

Never come into fruition

Or else the trees upon which they grow

Be banished from Eden’s Kingdom

May never a more saintly brow

Be mopped up by a vet

And therefore good kind Gents and Ladies

Do look after your goodly pets

Australian Reflections

Notes from a train

In the Out,

The river bed stout

Dry and dry again

Never fall the rains

On the potbellied plain

Of the crumbling green of tufted grasses

The crinkling leaves of trees in copses

The sapphire blue of the infinite sky

Against the dark green of the mountains

The peppered fields peopled by sheep

That peep from a green sea like fish out the deep

And forests, oh forests of spectacular stun

That reach to keep the splendid sun

And jack in the Marsh, rabbit on the hop

The kangaroo is filibustered in the election of the sun

Wallabies hid in the wheat

Spray of yellow rape at his feet

In the afternoon light

That is a delight

Upon the mottled plain

The mountainous lumps

Are stony stumps

Which lie in timeless stages for ages not in vain

The stirring rills which catch and spill

In pearly, swirly swills

Where swallows swoon

And boys fish with a loom

From their mother’s knitting room

Upon Cow Hill

Upon Cow Hill

What a thrill!

The moo of the mountains

As they kneel in the Sun

The pockets of forest

That bristle erect after fog

The dark cloud shadow

That blackens their slopes

Then the face of the loch

The whiffs of steam or smoke

From a factory in windless sky

Hanging like souls not yet ready to depart

Not yet willing to die