I have a friend abroad,
A dutiful witch of white,
To whom I owe praise,
You’ve been there for some time,
Though we have never shaken hands,
With your advice and your Dermot Kennedy,
Your temperance and your magic,
You speak to me on electrical channels,
In the wise chords of shamans,
Reaching miles under moonlight,
Even across wave and cliff,
The words and incantations still reach,
Like owls upon the wing,
A true friend.
Thank you Mel.
She is as a cobweb to me,
A heart-shaped trap above my bed,
A dreamcatcher of sorts,
Voyeur to my crestfallen eyes,
She is a lethal spider,
A black widow with no time for dross,
A powerful and bewitching thing,
A beautiful razors edge,
Which scores against my marrow,
Ensnaring me,
And so,
I find myself in the webs clutches,
She approaches me piecemeal,
Embracing me in her silk,
I am her fly,
And I am willing prey.
Mankind is but an acorn,
A humble spore,
Still at the beginning of its life,
Only just beginning to thrive,
Still a long way to go,
Only dreaming of one day being a redwood,
The growth spurts come thick and fast,
Microscopic to industrial to digital,
Evolution to innovation to augmentation,
Sometimes strangling other life,
The years plod on,
And the seed is preparing to split,
Not all trees reach their apex,
It’s a dog-eat-dog world,
Mans upsurge has been anathema to many,
Practicing allelopathy through progress,
Trees often blot out the sun for others,
And hominal endeavours are a choking canopy,
I do wonder,
When the time comes,
Will humanity sprout as an oak,
Or burst into a parasitic wasp?
One spring day,
The rain went away,
Its embrace no longer comforting us,
The mercury rose,
As the summer wine began to flow,
We eloped from our misty love,
Water left us in turn,
The dirt cracked in torrid applause,
The streams shrunk in embarrassment,
Clouds leaving us to our new solar paramour,
We have our stinking fun in the heat,
Reveling in the fire,
Our festivities and sunburns,
But when the rain comes again,
We shall embrace it as an old flame,
Forgiven.
If one is hunting demons,
Look no further than the filthy mosquito,
That most hated of creations,
They are vermin on buzzing wings,
Employing their odious bayonets,
Sucking the vitae from all,
Trading it for disease and malady,
A truly foul trade arrangement,
These winged hussars of ill health,
They never sleep,
While man overtly cracks the planet,
They are waging a secret war,
A war on all healthy life.
I once saw an old clown,
Weeping his facepaint away,
Knelt beside a lonely stream,
He sent his regrets on the current,
Letting them go as little paper boats,
Like a sad armada,
Soon to be burned,
Soon to be forgotten,
Every failure and chink in his ego,
Taken away on the embracing waters,
Blazing trails past eroded rock fern and pine,
He did realise as he finally stood up,
It was important that he relinquished them,
That he sent them away,
The stream was of his own making,
A product of his tears.
We are spawned as a blank slate,
With no rhyme or reason,
A doll not yet painted,
A straw fetish not yet burned,
We’re a biological puzzle,
A mutable disasterpiece,
We shift and grow over the years,
Mutated by our experiences,
Adapting bodily to lifes toils,
Given hardier scales after each betrayal,
Sharper talons and fangs for every struggle,
Sprouting wings to follow our dreams,
Each of us adapts differently,
The beauty and horror of nature,
Decade after decade,
And trial after challenge,
We keep evolving,
Until we finally go extinct.
Our lifeforce is a potion,
Brewed by some unseen witch,
Mother Nature in a pointy hat,
Following a recipe as old as time,
All manner of ingredients are sown,
Rosebuds and onyx and nightshade,
Moonlight and sunshine,
Thorns and salt and belladonna,
Carrion bird feathers and puppy dog tails,
Only the best components,
To create this marvel of alchemy,
A heartbeat in liquid form,
Imbibed within the womb,
And coughed up upon our deathbed.
The sun is fervent,
And the fields of green surround us,
Nature in all its splendour,
And its authority,
A patchwork of reeds and moss,
Tarmac snaking betwixt,
Hay fever winds and manure vistas,
A million little legs within the grass confines,
Fur and feather and carapace,
The fields of green are all around,
Pulsing,
Encroaching.
Death is a panther,
You cannot spy it amongst the bush,
But you know it hunts you,
Hunts us all,
A killing machine to the bone,
Scythe-like fangs,
And eyes trained on your every breath,
Following your scent since birth,
Its claws rasp across grass and asphalt both,
Its hunt could take years,
Decades even,
But this feline always gets its meat,
Death is a panther,
It’s a grizzly or falcon or barracuda,
It’s an apex predator,
Not formed of flesh and blood,
But of solemn inevitability.
WorldofHarley 