Words form into lines
then congregate in shapes
they fledge in search of minds
to make their great escapes

Predators pluck them clean from pages
swooping wild they clear the sky
then sated they return to cages
their clipped wings never meant to fly

Between folded thoughts of pen and note
are cracks where hope slips through
of all the words I ever wrote
none will fly to you

I watch the Fox from a hilltop
traverse the land outstretched, hedgerow and ditch,
hillock and furrowed ground,
only the wind in my ears

He ran like an endless drum-roll
to the piston beat of his wild heart,
a hundred hammering hounds behind
bristling red wire hair and slavering jaw.

Leaping and tumbling rolling on,
he shimmies through stone walls
now out in the open,
his life measured in closing yards.

In silence I see his demise
the baying the snapping and tearing,
the hound-dog heads soaking red
limb from limb till life is gone.

All this and the breeze blows on
no sound just moving air,
down in the village “The Huntsman” opens
and the kill is relived with riotous joy.

There is no “Huntsman” pub in the Parish, in the village of Medborne there is the “Nevill Arms Inn and restaurant” which sits in the heart of the village and upon which my imagination focussed.

In tea rooms secrets come and go
people hide from men and weather,
some plot to overthrow the norm
in china cups they brew a storm.

Pleasantries are exchanged in geriatric chat,
rustic stoves slow burn wood to warm the church-yard cat.
Vicars indulge oft curious boys
where peeling bells disguise their ploys.

Cyclist scratch at saddle chafe,
mischievous adulterers feel dangerously safe.
Old men rest dogs who’d rather walk
than shelter from the endless talk.

Here, writers dream of being read
while readers dream on what they said,
of words they pulled up from the page
which freed them from an earthly cage.

Outside life goes whirring on
but please indulge just one more Scone,
for here is where all things can be
in tea rooms where we take our tea.

Poets are just people
they fuck each others wives
they have hate and greed and envy
and ordinary lives

Karadzic was a poet
his words were worth forgetting
and though many still don’t know it
he was subliminally blood letting

Don’t place too high a value
on the access to expression
read a little history
and learn a worthwhile lesson

https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/heather-mcrobie/what-should-we-do-about-radovan-karadžić’s-poetry (Click on the link within the link)

In response to the often elevated status of poets and the recognition that they do not exist solely for good, worth remembering.

There is nothing exclusive about poetry, we are all receptive to it in different ways.

In a green dacha in a black wood
sat a grey man
under red skies

his eyes glazed and his hands shook
with his glass filled
by his old lies

though his friends died and the Kingdom fell
still he stayed there
and would not tell

what had moved him to belong there
to betray them
for this new hell

As I lay in bed last night
listening to a fox kill a toad,
knowing I could have stopped its screams
I remained there lazily warm
drifting toward my dreams.

This morning I tossed its severed torso
onto the compost heap.
I shoveled it under leaves feigning regret,
but truthfully its spilled gut sickened me.

I sleep through most nights soundly,
though from some other world I hear disembodied howls.
In the morning I read the sports pages first
whilst shuffling headline-horrors beneath junk mail.

I’m sailing from grid to grid
longitude latitude calculations
I’m not free at all
I’m a tool of many nations

My eye sees but doesn’t see
whatever was can never be
I’ll dive down hard when directed
because I’m the tool that you elected

I’ll evaporate your conscience
because when I strike I’ll burn the kill
you sentients can’t face the truth
but I’m the tool that will

I’m just a toggle tweak away
from fucking up your perfect day
I’m on patrol up in the blue
and I’m the tool to kill for you

It arrives with nothing to offer
like rescuers without a rope
standing on a jagged ledge
watching faith abandon hope

There are days of old men marching
in dewy eyed remembrance
days of plots betrayed
sedition and intemperance

Gunpowder falls back to earth
the sky defends the dark and wins
when October ends
naught good begins

The Sun tells lies on better days
much treachery disguised
with cloak and dagger tinted rays
it counterfeits our skies

Then in its wake the storm recedes
to back from where it came
for who knows where November leads
or craves it come again

We’re all so sad
so torn apart
so achingly wounded in the heart

We’re all so tortured
rent asunder
the self indulgent seeking plunder

We’re so offended
blind with rage
trapped inside our little cage

We’re so addicted
to cyclical destruction
our unmasked senses barely function

We’re so opining
so full of self
so fixated on our health

We’re so hurriedly pressured
so cruelly dismissive
skim reading plea’s in each others missive

We’re all so right
and never wrong
only our words fit the song

We’re all so crippled by the id
that only we
ourselves can kid