Through the village of Longbourn, the undead shuffle, The unemployed and the destitutes. The Luddites who moan in a rustic muffle, Back from Napoleon without any boots. Mr Bennett says he can’t even hear them, So alien is his world to theirs, But they’re getting restless, threatening mayhem – What if it spreads to the staff downstairs ? Don’t worry, Lizzie, here’s bold Mr Darcy With wealth that’s been stripped from the backs of the poor, He knows how to whip should the rabble gets arsey, And put them back down when they dare ask for more. Crush all their groups, and deport the whole crew, This seething horde of the unwashed masses. Best wipe them all out like befell Peterloo – Or the balls overrun with these jumped-up lasses.
When not ignoring the cruelty of the upper classes, Jane Austen liked to describe them at leisure over here.
detail from Saint Peter in front of his eponymous basilica in the Vatican, sculpted by Adamo Tadolini
Mistress Blacklock
Throughout the gothic city-states, Secure with many doors and gates, The greatest craftsmen in the land Were those who crafted locks – Protecting life and property Behind the password of a key – And yet, with just a twist of hand It frees our hearths and stocks.
Thus, whereupon the plague is rife, The locals dread their very life, And conjured up a chatelaine To rattle in the night – A mistress dark and grimly tall With sturdy boots and sweeping shawl, And ring-bound keys upon a chain To lock the dead up tight.
Never in a hurry, she, Yet striding on determinedly – She visits those who’s fever runs As fast as runs their sands. No lock can bar her solemn deeds, For she has just the key she needs To reach all lovers, reach all sons – Where’er the fever lands.
The doors unlock, and slowly swing Upon the rogue and saint and king, And in she stalks with silent ease, And stoppable by none. She takes the ring about her waist And cycles, never in a haste, Through all her heavy iron keys To find the very one.
And that she lifts and points toward Her victim, all the rest ignored And presses to his chest her shaft That bloodless passes through. The fingers of her left discern The bow upon the shank, and turn As smoothly as the masters’ craft, Their workings, firm and true.
Her right she offers to he held By him, that fear may be dispelled – They say her bony, steady hands Are warmer than you’d think. And so his latches spring apart To free his soul and stop his heart – Her key withdraws from out his glands With just the faintest clink.
And with that, speaking not a word, And with no other neighbour stirred, The plague has been about its chores With not a jam or jolt. As through the busy, ailing towns She goes about her nightly rounds, Of dousing lights and shutting doors And drawing home the bolt.
Does the Devil lurk at crossroads ? Doesn’t he have some place to go ? It’s a waypoint, not a terminus. But strum a guitar to the croaking toads And see if the Highway Lord will show – Or, failing that, the midnight bus.
Isn’t this where mediaeval priests Would bury the suicidal souls ? Is that why Satan’s such a fan ? But no undeads tonight, at least, Just jamming with the bats and moles, With not a trace of a bogeyman.
Of all the places to meet with fate, A junction seems a strange address – It sounds like the Devil’s lost his way. Whatever, the hour is getting late, With only the hedgehogs to impress – Time, perhaps, to call it a day.
These roads are just two country lanes, That even in daylight are pretty stark – The Devil has better things to do. Now, which way did I come, again ? All these paths look the same in the dark – Where’s the signpost ? Not a clue…
Old Zeus loved to dress as a bull, While Loki dragged-up as a mare – Pan would never be short of wool, And Bast had a head for feline flair.
Such tales from the priests and wassailers, Of shape-shifting changers Who scared dairymaids – For the Devil had all the best tailors, And demons were angels Who loved masquerades.
It used to be said that only the gods (And arthropods) Could metamorphosise – But humans watched, and wanted-in, To shed their skin For a cunning disguise.
And so came Hollywood, Wigs and prosthetics, And cosmetics enough to make Jezebel blush. Till even the fay never had it so good, And the witches spurned wands for our pencil and brush.
So we’re gloriously gothic and archly absurd, We’re casting a glamour To stammer the Word. And whether we’re devil or psycho or clown, We raise-up the dead for a night on the town.
And the gods all smile at how far we’ve run, As they don a new style to join in the fun.
For all they may claim that religious festivals of the dead are deeply serious and purely about honouring souls and lost relatives, or about warding-off dangerous evil spirits, never underestimate the subconscious human desire to dress-up and have a party.
Breathe deep, my dear, Fill your lungs With the vapour of the day – The hint of frost That pricks your throat, The faint tang of decay. Breathe, A little too rapidly – In with a stutter, Out with a rasp. Breathe deep, my dear, Breathe me in – The better to scream, The better to gasp. Or try to hold me in, Until your chest must heave Its own desire – For sooner, my dear, Or later, You know you must Expire.
Vigilance Vance was a devil for the devils, Finding them all over, in angles and in bevels – He found them in his toolbox, he found them in his bed, As they hollered from his bushes and they whispered from his head. They dulled his steely razor, they sharpened all his wine, They loosened-up his laces, they tangled-up his twine. In ev’ry mouth of mutton and in ev’ry bite of apple, They would choke him at the harvest, they would tickle him at chapel.
Vigilance Vance was awash in filthy devils From the Westmorland Lakes to the Somerset Levels He found them in the woodshed, he found them in the dray, Teasing him and taunting him and tempting him astray. He always knew they watched him, he felt their beady eyes On the bulging of his biceps and the firmness of his thighs – Ev’rywhere he found them, ev’rywhere he’d grapple – Fairies in the garden, gargoyles in the chapel.
The title is a reference to puritan paranoia – pure-annoy-uh.
Why are there so many zombies on our screens these days ? I’d say that they are testament to our improving ways. We’ve beaten violence, beggared hunger, massacred disease, And quarantined our lust for gore into our PG fantasies – Safely evil, nicely ugly, non-stain blood in quick-rip veins, Just round ’em up and mow ’em down in corporate campaigns. Mumbling, lurching, fodder-johnnies, Out-of-towners, dirty commies – Revel in some mindless fun before they eat our brains.
Queasy over blaming Mongols for their famous hordes ? Then let’s recast with green-skinned orks to quench our thirsty swords. Coldly-logic androids cause no controversial mess When we crush their next uprising – show no mercy for the merciless ! Shoot a Nazi, gas a pedo – harmless japes for kids to play, Just regulation bogeymen without the shades of grey. Exterminating creepy-crawlies, Squashing greater-goods with trolleys – Killing humans sure is fun when there’s no guilt to pay !
Model of Dunkleosteus terrelli, photographed by James St. John. I have been unable to uncover who made the model.
Sleeping with the Armoured Fishes
Ah lads, I love me a lonely building site, But best be down to business – bring the rat. It really is a calm if moonless night And I’m in quite the mood to have a chat. Yes, bring him here, and keep him gagged and bound. So, let’s have a look at you – nothing to say ? Ironic, given how you like to expound – But then, I’m not the cops, and I don’t pay. So pray, indulge me with a heart-to-heart. You’re what, mid-twenties ? Younger than I thought. Are you a college boy ? You think you’re smart ? But not so brainy now that you’ve been caught. Same age as my boy, infact, and just as raw. When he went off to uni, I said “Son, I don’t want you to study business or the law, Don’t want you to follow in my footsteps none. Go and find yourself in girls and books And study something useless, something fun.” “Alright dad,” he said, “goodbye to crooks, And here’s to looking after number one. And I know just the course for me – It’s palaeontology ! Digging up the bones like any average Jones.”
So off he went to college with his hammer Seeking out the placoderm and ammonite, To live that student life in all its glamour – Pasta, parties, politics and cram-all-night. And now he even works for a museum, Cataloguing shells and dating rocks – He calls the place a fossil mausoleum, Worshipping the dead, then seal them in a box. But then one day, he’s telling me how rare A fossil even is to ever find When so much of the past ain’t even there, We’re lucky that there’s any left behind. And if we died, wiped out, in plague or war – Well, when the dolphins rises, or super-ants, In sixty-five-odd million years or more, How would they know that we were smarty-pants ? Now I know what you’re thinking of, young man, Cos so was I, I thought I’d name that tune – So don’t interrupt, (not that you can) – But so I says “There’s footprints on the Moon !” “Perhaps” he says, “but even these Face meteorites and solar breeze, And the Voyagers ? Okay, but so very far away.”
Steel structures ? Not a chance, he said – Rusted, melted, eaten, and the trail is cold. The same with plastic, silicon, or lead – The only stable currency is gold. But not out here, where wind and rain can bite, And bring the highest mountains down to sand – But locked up in the Earth, well out of sight, With pottery and diamonds shaped by hand. And as for bones, we do ourselves no favours, By burying just six-feet deep in loam, And never mind cremation ! But our saviours Are those who drowned a mile beneath the foam – Sunk in shifting silt with little oxygen, ahoy ! Or in summat tough and clearly fake and littered by the score – And here’s where we finally come to you, old boy – It’s concrete ! Especially with rebar through its core. And when it’s in the pilings of a bridge, Then it’s already buried, safe as houses ! Okay lads, over here a smidge…and down he goes… A rat, I suppose, to join the future mighty mouses. I hope he makes it big some day – How fitting for his feet of clay To join a concrete shroud – my son would be so proud !
Most reinforced concrete structures begin crumbling after just a few decades due to the steel rebar rusting inside the slabs. Presumably this building site is using newer carbon fibre bars to ensure it can outlast the mountains.
Photo of the London plane tree in Wood Street in the Square Mile (taken by Katie Wignall ?)
The Root of All Evil
“Since it was first hybridised in the 1660s, the London Plane has slowly taken over the world.”
– The Manchester Gardener
Hybrid sap, mosaic bark, Twisted bloom and swollen seed, Bright amid the sooty dark, This gnarlèd gothic breed. He sprouts so slyly, this plant in the greenery – One of the forest and part of the scenery – No felling him, this mimic of maple, primordial cousin: Hack off a limb, and this pollarding hydra will shoot out a dozen.
Spawned in the blooms of his immigrant parents, A cuckoo inherent, a mongrel ill-born. Wrought in the heart of Enlightenment steam, From a fever-soaked dream on a dew-sodden morn. With roots in the clay and his head in Orion, A vigorous scion, a devil-blest spawn, A chance aberration, a found’ry mutation, With lacewood of iron and baubles of thorn.
Invading our cities while shedding his skin, This cryptic chimera has crept his way in. And none of his caste have succumbed to senescence, as yet… Elixir of ever-youth pumps his capillary, Sweeter than gin from an alley distillery, Alchemised out of pea-soupers and coal-dust and sweat. As if he were built out of ratchets and springs, His ethic for work will be written in rings – He’s still in his galvanised prime, through the dry-times and wet.
What hath we wrought ?, and what hath we mined ?, That ought to lie buried or trampled behind – But workshops of soil are shooting out hordes of his kind. And what if we find that he just keeps on growing ?, And fruiting and sowing, till all is entwined ? Hammered and forged in the mill and pipette – Who knows how engorged this goliath may get ?
It is uncertain if the first accidental hybrid occured in Spain or in Vauxhall Gardens in London (well, technically in Surrey, but close enough). Interestingly, for all the streets lined with them, I don’t think there are any woods with them growing wild.Infact, it would be fascinating to deliberately plant a patch of wasteland with nothing but London Planes and see how well they self-seed. Yes, I realise that they’re not strictly British natives, but then they’re really native to nowhere.
Mischief Night, and the Devil is abroad – He could be here. For on this night, be you tenant or lord, There’s something near. Be it a ghost, or the ghost of a thought, The underworld or the over-wrought, It may be all, or it may be naught – It’s getting dark, my dear.
Mischief Night, and the Devil is amock – He could be nigh. For on this night, as our worries flock, His jinks run high. A will-o’-the-wisp, or a whisp’ring breeze, A chill in the air, or a banshee’s sneeze ? A frost tonight or a deathly freeze ? It’s getting cold – oh my…
Mischief Night, and the Devil is alive – He could be me. For on this night, the shenanigans thrive, And fools run free. Is that a ghoul, or a turnip’s head ? A friendly fright, or the living dead ? And the Devil just smiles and goes to bed – It’s getting late, you see.
Rhyming Couplets 