The Benthonaut

octopus
Octopus by Nat Raum

The Benthonaut

Three-hearted, blue-blooded, copper in your veins,
Spending all your days just lounging on the reef,
Merging with the furniture, watching for the gains:
You pouncing, morphing, jetting, dancing, slinking, oozing thief,
You hunger-striking annual, blooming all too brief.
Bursting into action, but your stamina devoid,
You tremor-detecting, ink-ejecting, R-selecting chromataphoid.

With arms you cannot quite control in each particular,
Foraging and tasting with an independent mind.
Spirit-level eyes that will maintain their perpendicular,
With optic nerves all plugged-in from behind.
All of this intelligence, all of this complexity,
All this curiosity, all this raw dexterity;
And yet no society – such a lonely vexity you are –
And living far too short for such an eight-pointed superstar.

Sorry, Elizabeth

big ben tower london
Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

Sorry, Elizabeth

“Big Ben is only the bell,”
You smugly tell,
But actu’lly, we already know.
Except you’re wrong:
It’s the bit that goes bong,
And ev’rything else, above and below.
Big Ben is the bell,
And the clock as well,
And even the whole bloody tower !
Ask any you meet
On Parli’ment Street
Whenever he’s chiming the hour.

Corvus niger

selective focus photograph of black crow
Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels.com

Corvus niger

Why do ravens always wear black ?
Do they want to blend in with the pack ?
Are they just too shy to be pizzazz ?
Are they just too moody, cool and jazz ?
Why are they dressed in Sunday Best, not tweeds ?
Are they decked in mourning, veiled in widow’s weeds ?
Or are they maybe prison warders ?
Are they priests in holy orders ?
Are they fed’ral agents on the wing ?
Or do they merely want to go with ev’rything ?
Are they goths and metalheads – or maybe simply posh ?
Or are their other feathers in the wash ?
So why is it ravens always wear the black ?
(But if they dressed in mufty, I guess they’d get the sack.)

As a matter of fact, albino ravens do occassionally turn up, especially around Vancouver Island, as these gorgeous photos by Mike Yip show:

And while I’m at it, here’s a painting of one entitled Diwata by onrie07:

Lingua Inglese

black and gray desk globe
Photo by fotografierende on Pexels.com

Lingua Inglese

It wasn’t a planned or a pre-destined course,
But brought on by conquest and culture and chance.
So half of the ears of the world are in reach,
And so many throats are alive to the word.
They flock to our phonemes that stream from our source,
Our syllables speak and their speakers advance –
For held on our tongues is the honey they teach,
That calls to the world and will always be heard.
But just as it rises, so shall this same force
Then favour another to make their tongues dance.
Our moment must pass – then our ripening peach
Shall sour their lips, with its stones spat and slurred.
Yet now all is golden, yet now they endorse
For all of its failings and spellings askance.
So use it and wisely and sweetly in speech,
For as long as its fluke is the fluke that’s preferred.

Omniphonics

sign

Omniphonics

The beauty of English is all those who seek it
With all of their Anglisized ears.
The whole world is lis’ning, for evil or good,
Our blessing and curse is to be understood.
The beauty of English is ev’ryone speaks it –
The trouble is, ev’ryone hears.

We Need More Gods

gods

We Need More Gods

Why just the same old almighty creator ?
Let’s have us a dozen, let’s restate our mission.
We have to deregulate sooner or later,
And open up faith to the free competition.
We must raise the funding and research the data,
To set up a pantheic-forming commission –
We ought to have choice in our heavenly pater
And hire the divine in an open audition.

Just think of the deities, wiser and greater,
With freedom to choose of which gods to petition –
They’re building their brand as a hero or traitor,
With two-for-one offers on prayers and remission –
And specialist markets will open to cater:
A Goddess of Love or a Wine-God musician –
And all supervised by the trade regulator,
To see they deliver on sin and perdition.

Chromium Dreams

Vintage Sci-Fi
Vintage Sci-Fi by Josh Newton

Chromium Dreams

They promised us of Things To Come:
The Future’s oscillating hum,
When dreams of Progress are unfurled
And pitched to claim this Brave New World.

We always knew it’s coming soon,
Those holidays upon the Moon,
The robots, ray guns, rocket boots,
The purple hair and silver suits.

But look at what infact we get:
The wind-farm and the internet.
Organic foods, not protein pills,
And terrorists, not air-raid drills.

We never got to live like gods
In fully-automated pods,
We never got to touch the stars
In UFOs and flying cars.

There’s no-one chilled in cryo-sleep,
There’s no-one dreams electric sheep,
There’s no-one swashes laser-swords
To saves the Earth from Martian hordes.

We’ve waited, just to find, too late
The Future now is out of date,
Yet still unripe its promised plums –
Alas, Tomorrow never comes.

Valentine Sestina

supermarket
image by Sandi Ward

Valentine Sestina

Carrots, caulis, spuds…I’ll need some more,
A pack of coffee – fairtrade ?  It should say.
They’ve haven’t any left ?  Well, that’s a bore.
A loaf of sliced should last till Saturday,
Three pints of milk, or should I get-in four ?
It’s only sold in litres, anyway.

A rosy apple keeps the doc away,
Although, I ought to see the dentist more…
Oh yes, some roses for the special day,
And juicy steak – perhaps some sirloin boar.
The things we have to do to simply say
The things we’ve said so many times before.

Honestly, what do we do this for ?
Did great-great-grandmama, back in the day ?
And must our children’s children evermore,
Until the very Earth has given way ?
But who would ever wish to be that bore ?
And so we bite our tongues and never say.

Is money to be made from love ?  I’ll say !
It brings our brashful boasting to the fore:
We peacocks strut and dance the night away
And when we’ve had enough, we cry for more.
But better to be Caesar for a day,
And when the tide must rise, to ride its bore !

But don’t let bonhomie become the boor,
Who talks too loud and always gets his way
By swinging round a verbal two-be-four –
Instead, let your initials have their say
When paired upon a lovers’ sycamore.
But there I go, just jawing on all day.

Now strawberries are good for five-a-day –
Such passion-fruit the steamy hothouse bore…
Champagne, of course – is this a good one, say ?
No garlic, though…oh my, it’s almost four !
I need to get this supper underway,
To let my wife become my paramour.

Adders & Ladders

snake & ladder
Snake and Ladder by Cedric Sam

Adders & Ladders

Vivaporous vipers give me the vapours,
But I shall envelop these slitted-eyed scrapers.
Rapture enripens their serpentine stare:
J’adore l’addeur !  Vive la vipère !

I’ll stick to the cutest constrictors for starters,
I’ll string along threadsnakes, slink upto the garters,
I’ll scale up the ladderbacks, slide down the smooths –
I’ll dice with their snake-eyes, I’ll slalom their grooves.

Vivaporous vipers are venomous vermin,
Yet I shall unfasten and welcome the worm in.
I’ll love ev’ry squeezer and cherish each fanger –
Ich liebe die Kreuzotter !  Heil die Schlange !