The silly burgers loll at ease
upon the fading flora.
They fondly think that fauna extinct
is adorable in photos.
They read that their actions blight the earth
with heat and the proverbial ill wind.
They say they’ll solve the problems by
having fewer new grandchildren.
Of course there are naked ladies in the garden.
The gorgon guards them as he has half the summer.
And we, sighting them, bicycle by as if,
if we keep our eyes averted, he will harden
till his menace, veiled, a cryptic, scary mummer,
gets mooted, and – the way icicles stiff
with frost will fracture when struck from the side –
then we pop him with our handlebars and ride
unscathed through the garden gates and, once inside,
acquaint ourselves at leisure with the ladies.
We listen, as the prettiest and the smallest
of them (she’s pleased we ogle her) explains
the rules – which are, when each of us has made his
peace, the one of us left standing tallest
may banish all the others to the plains
where they’ll monkey round to grind the gypsy organ
while he, new Zola, like the pirate Morgan
gets crowned the garden’s statutory gorgon.
P.S. It is sexist to depict the hideous gorgon
as usually or especially a female.
The reigning Morgan Zola’s from Glamorgan
and’s for a male a very hot tamale
We don’t want facts and thought. We want a story
we believe in and can use to justify our killing
the planet while imagining we are safe.
Here’s one candidate story: soon the elite will live on Mars
and we will be among that proud elite.
(Fantasies compounded must come true.)
Here’s one candidate story: we are successfully inventing
ways to vaporise the poor and breathe the air
this releases to live forever and to fly.
I asked the wild Crow who is visiting from the forest near the sea
which of all the things we hear are true for eternity.
I needed to know to save my soul which edicts are divine.
The Crow eyed me sadly as she cawed, ‘Your myth is as good as mine.’
He slept a while and when they called his name
he slept some more. The coach to Heaven left.
He woke prodded by the anti-celestial tines
of a pitchfork which he reckoned, by its heft,
was being wielded by a devil of large size.
‘You’re a big devil, aren’t you?’ he said. He tried to smile.
The devil flung him hindmost into a haystack
which needled him. This was no way to while
away the aeons he knew he’d be waiting
his turn for yet another reincarnating.
Mad mallards dabble on the Ijsselmeer.
I do not mind them doing so, for I
am on the Beach Atlantic, where the clear
wish wash of waves unites the dunes and sky.
When winter calls me (sunburn makes me old)
my soul will fly on memories sun braised
from when, together, we fought off the cold:
You, sun, and I, the zest we raised!
‘Ephemeral are us’ and leathered skin
are pittances (our taxidermist clucks!)
when set against the profit that rolled in
when we took sea and left the marsh to ducks.
A moment, Summer. One long moment, please,
till Autumn falls and glorious pleasures freeze.
Earth Tourist 