Do you feel the cold nip ?, Do you feel the dark creep ?, Do you feel your chest grip, And lungs rasp, and heart leap ? Whatever else is in this dark, You think, It’s not alone out here – For it must share this lonely park With both you and your fear. You hear that ? Hark… Don’t blink, Don’t make the blood rush through your ear. Ba-dump, ba-dump, Your throat a lump, Your calm but an veneer. Now all your senses are abuzz, To ev’ry twitch and sigh – You only feel alive because You’re too afraid to die.
Do you bite your numb lips ?, Do you count each heart thump ?, Do your prickled fingertips Clench fast each time your teeth jump ? Whatever else is in your mind, You think, It’s not alone in there – For it must stalk your misaligned And overactive lair. Don’t look behind, Just blink, Before your nerves fly ev’rywhere. Ba-dump, ba-dump, Your tremors pump, Your heart recites a prayer. And yet, be thankful when it does, For this, at least, is real – You only feel afraid because You’re still alive to feel.
She is a Goth in black and pale, In a daily cosplay, a loudmouth mime – I muse if the process ever gets stale ? But she’s on the dole, so I guess she has time. On the days when I see her looking very boring Is a day when I think she prob’ly has an interview – But otherwise, I see her chequered like the flooring, Posing for commuters as we hurry on through. In time, I guess, she’ll simply grow out of it, And land that job where she has to behave, And sign-up for tennis, as if she never doubted it, And marry into motherhood, and paint the architrave. Until, one day, an unexpected photograph, An over-awed grandchild, and it all comes back – With a flicker of pride and an unassuming laugh, And a tale of the daily pale and black. Am I projecting ? I think I’m projecting. But every day, as her statement goes by, I find myself once more reflecting On how she’s the only one round here to even try. Yet surely the Goths are braver when in company, As freaks together, a performance shared ? But her mates just slouch in their t-shirts, grumpily – And I am no different, I never would have dared…!
Prom queens, drag queens, jugglers, and spies, Criminals, judges, actors in disguise – Baldness, boldness, hide or tantalise, It’s all just a cosplay in the end.
Human or synthetical, Sacred or heretical – It’s hair, but theoretical, Where frank and fancy blend.
In bobs and updo’s, blond and brunette, In fringe and ringlets, silver and jet, A lace-front quick-change, no regret – It’s all just a snatch and a shake.
Compact and collectable, Increasingly respectable, From downright undetectable To fabulously fake !
Besides from the bunches laid with care, There’s plenty of blooms around – Peacefully scenting reverent air And rising out of the ground. And looking as though they have always grown there, Spreading from grave to grave, unbound.
Lilies creep around the edges, Speedwell bids the souls farewell, And lichen colours urns and ledges, Where the lady’s bedstraws dwell Wrought-iron railings form the hedges, Butterflies enchant their spell.
Yews, of course, have long been prized, With folklore running deep, And cypresses are well-advised For the greenery they keep, And Trees of Heaven, naturalised, Like some who lie asleep.
Wych-hazel makes herself at home, But cherries are out of place – Confetti is such a frivolous foam That doesn’t leave a trace. Forget-me-nots, meantime, will roam, Wherever they find a space.
The dead, of course, don’t care what’s living up there, They’ve other concerns, But graveyards are gardens we all must share, Be we friends or weeds or worms. And ev’ry flower we all can spare Will help us to come to terms.
I deliberately tried to shake up the rhythm a bit between verses, to see if it could still flow. As for the location, I have visited before here and here (and, more pertinent to the season at hand, over here).
I wanted to speak the language of flowers, Just like my heroines of old. But how can the secrets of petals be ours When meeting in Winter’s cold ? I guess there’s holly and mistletoe, And snowdrops still to come, perhaps ? But love, I fear, has yet to grow, And plenty of time to lapse…
I wanted to win you with floral wooing, Now that Spring has raised his head – But tulips are for financial ruin, And lilies are for the dead. I guess there’s always the dandelion, Though who sees the beauty beneath the weed ? Our love, I fear, is swiftly dying, Like daffodils gone to seed.
I wanted to cast such blossoming spells, With Summer so rampant and velveteen – But buttonhole-sunflowers smother lapels, And roses come purple and green. I guess there’s just too much to choose – Exotic, or native ? We cannot be both. So love, I fear, is swamped for a muse, And trapped in the undergrowth.
I wanted to breathe the tongue of the blooms, But who remembers the code these days ? And now that Autumn is blowing our rooms, It feels too late for bouquets. I guess, though, dahlias could be for darlings ? And conkers for fun, and pumpkins for screams ? For love, I feel, will still find it charming, Whatever it thinks it all means.
Leaving Inktober behind, there is just time for a seasonal bouquet before things get spook-ay...
Some plants only germinate through fire, Waiting out the years Until the tragedy appears. They need the forest hotter, tinder dryer, Even dropping oil To make a tarpit of the soil. But there hasn’t been a fire through here, I’m told, In fifty years of cold – I guess these trees are all the same-age-old.
Their life-cycle needs the flames be fanned, They need to taste the char Before they’ll shoot a single spar. They need apocalypse to sweep the land To birth their phoenix seeds, To grow within the ash of weeds. And there are even beetles who must birth Within the hell-scorched earth, (Though salamanders don’t, for what it’s worth).
Ev’rybody’s in a hurry, So are you, and so am I, For ev’rybody’s busy-busy Scurry-scurry, gotta fly, Now ev’rybody’s in a tizzy, So am I, and so are you, Cos ev’ryone, from Skye to Surrey, Whizzes-round like ballyhoo, We’ve got to keep the bubbles fizzy, Got to keep it on the go, We ain’t got time for worry-worry, Ain’t got time to say hello, When ev’rybody’s in a flurry, Kangarooing, hue and cry, Till ev’rybody’s downright dizzy, Sorry, thank-you and goodbye…
In reams and reams of screens, Awash with electronic ink, Modern life, it seems, Can be too quick to make a link – Bombarding us with helpfulness That turns out to be bunk, As we’re wading through a wealth of mess, And oceans-worth of junk.
With teems of smart machines Whose outputs only grow and grow, Modern life, it seems, Is just afraid to tell us “no”. Is classification then simply an illusion, Decisiveness drowning in doubt ? Results are lost in too much inclusion, And not enough filtering-out.
These aren’t people, we needn’t feel sorry, They have no sentience – We’re not some malevolent Tory With deep cuts we must dispence. We needn’t be stone-deaf to pleas, For no pleas can be made. These facts aren’t lonely refugees – So why is our softwear swayed ?
We need our algorithms cruel If they’re to be effective, For what’s the point of a rule If we won’t let it be selective ? So we have to choose, it cannot be both these, In our data refinery – For we need no participation trophies In the world of binary.
Yep, I just treated data as a mass-noun, and not a plural. The same way as every pedant would still treat news as not a plural.
Peasblossom, Cobweb, Moth & Mustardseed by Rosalind Lyons
Sparkle
Glint all you want, you spangle, you sequin, We won’t hear the photons you sing – Your careless and moment’ry manner of speaking Is nothing but corporate bling. Your beauty is deadly, you tinsel, you glitter, You’re nothing but plastic that shines – You shimmer undimmed in the undying litter Of downfall that’s dressed to the nines. But it isn’t your fault, your glimmers, your flashes, How can we not light to your smile ? If the end of the world has such radiant ashes, At least we will go out in style !
