They call him the Antarctic Beech, And they call him False Beech too, He’s somewhat beechy, that bit’s true, Although he’s rather false as well: A cousin, not a brother, truth to tell. But as for the Antarctic, hell – That one’s a real reach !
Antarctic Beech is no such thing, He cannot cross the Southern Seas – He clings to Fuego, looking out, The southernmost of all the trees. He braces up to southerlies That stunt and sculpt and knock about.
And so, each slow September-Spring He wakes, and adds another ring. But far five hundred miles beyond, His boughs bow-out to fragile gloom, Where only mosses raise a frond, And only grass and pearlwort bloom.
Now far to the north, he’s also in sprout: An immigrant hardwood who’s hardy and stout. So the Antarctic Beech is the king of the Faroes – Where’er the cold air blows, That’s where he grows. Though not in all lands that are under the Plough, But only as far as the cold will allow: The poles are forever beyond his long reach – Forever the sub-arctic beech.
The Horn’s as far as he may go, But fair’s fair, fossils have been found Beneath the harsh Antarctic ground – But as for living species: no. But oh ! The Antarctic beech – what a star ! The tree to the south of the south of afar ! So yes, we all know that his claim is a lie – But how could we let such a name pass us by ?
We can rebuild you Stronger, faster, smarter – Fumigate your mildew, Galvanize and gild you, Be your head-starter, thought-charter, Wisdoms-of-the-age-imparter – Enskill you and fulfil you, As we inkwell and enquill you. Your eyes shall be retooled, de-fooled, And sculpted with that glint that marks the schooled.
Cornubia by John Miller. The fine detail is somewhat lost here, but every church (maybe just the mediaeval ones ?) has a shaft of light falling on it – you can just make out the larger shaft picking out Truro Cathedral (which also houses the painting). Yes, I know the cathedral is Victorian, but it reuses some of the fabric of Truro parish church.
The Land of the Saints
They’re pious in Cornwall, or proud, or just quaint, Sennan and Bryvyth, Morwetha and Cleer They name half their villages after a saint – Piran and Tudy, Winwillo, Gwinear Not many Marys or Peters or Pauls, Nevet and Probus, Mabena and Breock For ev’ry Saint Helen’s we find a Saint Mawes. Leven and Cuby, Wennapa and Feock Our corp‘or‘ate saints have been roundly withstood, Sithney and Breward, Lalluwy and Ruan For theirs are so local, old Cornish done good. Mylor and Sancreed, Illogan and Mewan
I’m sure I’m getting the emphasis wrong on some of these names, but that’s the beauty of English – anything goes, and my mispronunciation is just as valid as yours, especially when you definitely have never heard of these names before. And yes, they’re Cornish, not English, but consider them now Anglisised. And yes, I did just spell Anglisised with two esses – deal with it.
“…all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.”
– Leviticus, chapter 11, verse 23
Chow down on the damselflies, Munch upon their crop – Bite into their compound eyes Until you feel them pop. Scoff on moths and feast on ’wigs, Or ’skaters, ’skeeters, whirligigs – And aphids served up by the dish With ladybirds and silverfish.
Count the legs to know the score. If six apiece, our bugs are pure.
Chomp upon the wasp when ripe And pluck each silky wing, Chew upon its barley-stripe And suck its juicy sting. Scarabs sate the palate well, Just don’t forget to crack the shell – While maggots taste so sweet and young, When slowly melting on the tongue.
Count each foot and thigh and shin – When legs are six, we never sin.
But locusts and crickets All look like they’ve rickets With bandy gert hindlegs for springing around. And mantids, you’re saying Have forelimbs for praying. But all use all six when they creep on the ground. And fleas, if you please, walk the hexa-gait too – (At least, in the circus they do.)
So count each leg, each gnat and bee – For six is fit anatomy !
*****
But feast not on the mutants, The foul four-leggèd mutants ! Such creeping fowls thou shalt not eat, With legs above their feet.
Beware the peacock butterfly ! With four leg-legs and foreleg combs. Beware the mantidfly, they cry ! And drive these devils from our homes.
Then feast not on the spine that’s rimmed by six, With shoulders double-limbed. So count the struts in which they’re clad – Six legs good, four legs bad.
And I heard of some bats in New Zealand Who go on all-fours on the floor Their wings get tucked up, and each free hand Is def’nit’ly walked on, for sure !
So shout it out to congregations – None shall taste abominations ! Heresies thou shalt not eat With legs above their feet.
So gather, gather for the feast Of insects, great and small. They’re pure and kosher, ev’ry beast – Six-leggèd, one and all !
I have seen footage of a mantidfly use it’s forelimbs to help pull itself up a wall, but on the flat at least they seem to keep them folded up. The unrelated praying mantis does similar, but I think may use it’s forelimbs for locomotion a bit more often. But the real champions are the brush-footed butterlies (peacocks, monarchs, tortoiseshells, red admirals) whose front ‘legs’ are far too short for standing on. Probably best not to eat them, just in case…
As for birds, they use their forelimbs for flying, or swimming (penguins), or display and balance (ostriches), but never for weight-bearing locomotion. The only partial exception are the hoatzin and the unrelated turacos whose chicks have claws on their wings which they use to climb (but not walk), and which are lost as they fledge. The pterosaors were a different matter, with azhdarchids in particular showing a preference to spend longer on the ground scampering around on all-fours, but of course they hadn’t survived Noah’s Ark…
Oh, and the narrator seems to have forgotten that bats are specifically forbidden in Leviticus 11:19, so avoiding New Zealand bats in favour of flying foxes is no help. Although…did ‘bat’ really mean bat ? I’ve pondered on that over here.
I love cake – I never will be through with it, Cos any kind we bake Has so much we can do with it: Use it as an ornament, Use it as a pet chair, Use it as a jotting-pad, Use it as a set square, Use it as a dickie-bow, Use it as a floor mop, Use it as a paperweight, Use it as a doorstop, So many ways of having it, It’s really off-the-ball. To even waste a little bit By eating it at all.
They’re funny things, are names, As they rise and fall with fashion, And so fluky in their claims For what newborns they can ration From the finite pool of name-less youths To whom they shall be handed – To turn them into Bens and Ruths, And leave them tagged and branded. And sometimes from colloquial obscurity Comes suddenly a surge into maturity, As sweeping ’cross the country comes The choice of sev’ral-thousand mums. And maybe just as quickly as they flourished, So we find them lost and undernourished: Out-of-date and now a joke, Just withered names on withered folk. They’re funny things, are names: They’re just sounds and signs and smoke.
These words are mine, And you shan’t have them – These are mine, and mine alone. I guard them close So none may grab them – Guard them close, these words I own. Oh, how much you want them, want them, Oh, how much you seethe and pine So here, take envy, just for you… But jealousy is mine, all mine !
It should be pointed out that the conflation of jealous to mean envious has a long history, and Wiktionary provides quotes of both Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain using it this way. As a strict descriptivist, I have no problem with this (as shown here), but tend not to use jealous at all, preferring envious and possessive. But that’s just me.
detail from Experiment with an Air Pump by Joseph Wright
Soul-Lights
Perhaps she is just a chimera, Or otherwise born with this curious guise – For ev‘er‘ytime that I’m near her, I cannot but help to look into her eyes. Perhaps she has suffered a trauma, Where blood is now staining her iris tattoo That partially came to transform her, With one eye of hazel, the other of blue. And further, her hazel is golden Encircling her iris, but greener beyond. Her stare surely has me beholden, Her pupil eclipsing its het’rochrome pond. No contacts nor tumours nor ’Shop-tricks Are needed to give them what rarely occurs. If souls can be glimpsed in our optics, Then softly she carries a rainbow in hers.
The banks all held a holiday, with ev’ryone invited: These pin-striped bowler-hatted gents were thoroughly delighted To paddle in the briny sea with crowds of day-trip workers, And hike the green and pleasant hills and join the mansion-lurkers. They greeted bakers, plumbers, teachers, ev’ryone from ev’ry measure – Watched the doctors, taxmen, postmen, ev’ryone about their leisure. ’Cept for those, of course, who had no need for such a lazy day, Because these reckless banker shits had stolen all their jobs away.
Judas in paintings is often the one Who’s sporting the bright carrot hair. What does this signify, why was this done ? For redheaded Jews were exception’ly rare. Maybe he dyed it with henna, of course, For most nat’ral gingers were Celtic or Norse, So who were the genealogical source Of Judas Iscariotson ?
Edom has nothing to do with Judas, being the brother of Isaac in Genesis, but his name means ‘red’ in Hebrew.
Rhyming Couplets 