Helios
The Sun is a restless god,
Driving his chariot ever on.
The dawn won’t last for long,
Before it’s gone, to welcome the morning
Where the queen of night once trod.
Before we know, it’s midday,
And his heat is full upon us –
Then into his afternoon we rush,
And all too soon, the growing dusk,
As once again he slips away.
White Whiskers
Cats love milk, everyone knows it,
Even the cats know it’s true –
All of common culture shows it,
Cats just love the moo !
Since Aesop told the ancient Greeks,
The white has dyed the wool –
As ever since, our folklore speaks of it
By the saucers-full.
Except…they can’t digest it,
No, not even when it’s creamed –
They’re done with being breast-fed
Since their kitten-selves were weaned.
And yet, the tales are prominent
Throughout the milky West –
I guess we lactose-tolerants
Think good-old breast is best !
But blame for this situation
Is not ours alone, at that –
For this dangerous temptation
Is such catnip to a cat.
For moggies won’t learn the lesson,
As they glut with ev’ry lap,
Not knowing how they’re messing
With a lit’ral booby trap.
Swamm-Lore
Humans have been farming fungus
Since the old days of the Tang –
The jellied-ear perhaps was first,
And up the mycoculture sprang !
Shiitake and enoki,
Grown on logs and straw and bran,
Until in damp Enlightened France,
The button mushroom crop began.
Strange, the Romans loved their fungus,
Yet they never learned the knack –
And the monks were so productive,
Yet they only gave the yeast a crack.
Although, it proved quite tricky
Unless sterilized for pathogens –
Far easier to forage in the woods
That mess around with pens.
Meanwhile, folklore had been busy,
Earthy names for ev’rything –
Observe the toadstool and the stinkhorn,
Bird’s-nest and the fairy ring.
But where were all the memory-rhymes
On which ones was it not worth risking ?
Or how to tell a puffball
From a death cap or a poison pigskin ?
Perhaps there are no generalities
To indicate the vicious –
One-by-one, we learn how white gills, say,
Are deadly, or delicious.
Ugly textures, noxious smells,
May sometimes show vitality –
Their looks do not align at all
With fairytale morality.
These days, though, the urban myths
Are more concerned with mould and spore,
And in hallucinations,
And the nuclear clouds of war.
The time of the destroying angel’s
Shrouded in mediaeval mist,
Or from genteel whodunnits,
Or a pith-helmet nat’ralist.
Humans have been farming fungus,
Fascinated with their fruits –
Not really understanding them,
Yet sniffing truffles out of roots.
These days, it’s all commercialised,
To keep safe ev’ry cassarole,
Without an unintended killer
In our toadstool-in-the-hole.
The Chinese appear to have been farming Auricularia heimuer (aka the Black Wood Ear Mushroom) since the Tang Period (10618 – 10907 HE). They local name for it is ‘heimuer’, subsequently used as the species epithet. However, I have been unable to find any guide as to how this is pronounced. I think it may be something like high-moo-er, but that sounds more like a cow who has been feeding on a rather different kind of fungus…
The Prayer in the Purr
What do cats dream,
Those tabbies, napping in the Sun all day ?
Are they getting cream,
Or perhaps they fighting with a scar-clawed stray ?
Does it scratch their itch,
Or raise a threat that’s coming out to creep ?
Ev’ry time they twitch,
Are they trembling from a nightmare stalking sleep ?
A cat has no other cats to call for mental health,
It’s up to them alone to learn to wake themself.
Is that why they sleep when the Sun is shining stark ?
As if they’re too afraid to have to lie there in the dark ?
What do we dream,
We humans, snoring to the Moon all night ?
Cheering on our team,
Or racing through our minds from guilt and fright ?
So is it so odd,
If felines fear, and maybe find some faith ?
If cats have a god,
I hope she’s keeping well her clowder safe.
So when they come to humans, just to join us on our bed,
And even though we partly know they’re looking to be fed –
Yet just for a moment, we feel it feel so deep,
As if they’re seeking comfort here to calm their troubled sleep.
New Kid in Town
Country folk are godly folk,
They sing to holy Jesus,
Sing how he’s the one they set their heart upon.
Yet over Nashville way, no joke,
They worship olive trees, yes,
Sing to Grecians in their mighty Parthenon.
They built a statue of Athena
Dressed in gold and ivory,
With ancient eyes of blue that never blink.
They built a temple to the Virgin,
Yet in rivalry –
Cos she ain’t the usual Virgin that they think –
Hallelujah, hail Athena !
Sing it loud and sing it free !
You beat Poseidon with his trident,
And now Jesus with his trinity.
We need a goddess, not a patriarch
To stir these sisters free –
In the Athens of the South, your spark
Lights up your mystery.
Country folk are gawdy folk,
They love their rhinestone rings –
Yet their churches are just warehouses of prayers.
Is Jesus stoney broke
That he can’t afford some decent bling
In which his shouty preachers flog his wares ?
But over at Athena’s place,
There’s statues in the pediments
Of epic battles fought in ancient times –
She may be stoic in her face,
But not so harsh and regiment
To frown upon our splashing-out the dimes.
Hallelujah, hail Athena !
Sing it free and sing it loud !
Lady Wisdom, Lady with the Owl,
Intelligent and proud –
We need a goddess to the arts
For fans to worship when we hum –
A diva moving-up the charts,
Who’s number one till kingdom come.
The original statue was sculpted by Phedias in 9563HE. This replica was designed by Alan LeQuire in 11990, using gypsum cement, fibreglass-infused plaster, and gold leaf (not ivory, like the original, but close enough – and surely Phedias would have loved to have access to these…) It is, I believe, based on ancient descriptions and other statues, but I’m sure some original interpretation has been included, and quite right too !
The Cherry, Then
Sweet cherry, bird cherry,
British since the glacier –
White of flower, red of berry,
Showing Spring is on the merry
With their blossoms looking very
Much the lacier.
And yet our folklore shrugs and mocks
Our modern-day delight.
Did Stonehenge mark the equinox
As cherry petals blew in flocks ?
Did Boudicca manoeuvre and out-fox
From woods of white ?
Did Patrick banish Irish snakes
From out of trees so halcyon ?
Did Alfred burn the cherry cakes,
Or Chaucer tell of ruddy aches,
As Easter breezes stir the flakes
Throughout old Albion ?
The Japanese have celebrated long
The bloom before the leaf,
But Europe only saw a throng
Of messy trees not worth a song.
Were rebirth metaphors too strong,
Or blossoming too brief ?
Judas Trees
Judas hanged himself, we’re told,
But from which tree in the potter’s field ?
Some say Elder, pagan and bold,
And some say Cercis bore his yield.
The Elder is likely the tale that’s old,
Though the Bible has the facts concealed.
Cercis may be a later rod,
So did logistics bring its birth ?
For the Elder presence is rather odd,
As a shrub which lacks both height and girth –
So the one who kissed the face of god
Must sway just inches from the earth.
The True Cross
The Romans built their crosses
Out if any local wood –
Roughly sawn and bluntly joined,
They needn’t be too good.
Growing full of nail-holes
And bloodstained, as a rule,
When used and used again, until they rotted,
Then hacked-up for fuel.
If Jesus ever lived, if Jesus died
Upon those wooden piers,
Those planks would carry-on their work,
Outlasting him by years.
Some say cedar, some say cypress,
Relics for a coronation.
All are wrong – the Cross was built
From our imagination.
Fish on Friday
The Catholics do it ev’ry Friday,
Or so they often claim,
The Protestants, only during lent,
Attempt to do the same.
While unbelieving heathens such as I
May join-in, if we wish,
But just as an excuse, in the event,
To share some tasty fish.
We only seem to think of it in my day,
Just as Easter comes.
But still, the start of the weekend is well spent
In batter or golden crumbs.
The Witherness of the Fig-Tree
Fruit was demanded, out of season,
Before the wasps had arrived.
A prophet cursed you, for no reason,
Except that he was denied.
Why so passive-aggressive that day ?
Why was he out to settle a score ?
Or did he just take your life away,
To be a metaphor ?
Was it power or wine made him drunk ?
Yet, after his magic tricks,
The Romans took your withered trunk
To make them a crucifix.
Rhyming Couplets 