Underneath The Swarm

 

 

 

the Red Queen is on the move

 

wheels are turning

 

  over another ice cream window

 

catafalque for a dead bee 

 

swarming over the oak path 

 

roots in the sand the observation path

 

old industrial music made in a shed on the 

 

outskirts of town at least zone 4

 

climbing a wall of fast dissolving sand

 

he clasps his sceptre

 

you are outside the zone

 

correction you need to go back

 

the skull’s head tooth wont grip anymore

 

you’re out of your depth

 

feeling lion manes against your swimming feet

 

unable to resist 

 

looking back in the swell

 

what the fills heart to make it

 

sore of horror 

 

what wants to 

 

allow

 

us to make barbeques

 

let us invite some friends

 

talk about the shared experience

 

meet me in the orangery 

 

we have something

 

important to discuss

 

it concerns imperial matter and 

 

coagulants in the king’s old legs

 

strike 

 

action

 

withhold labour 

 

now you’re neither woman 

 

nor man

 

but the swarm that moulds itself around the face of 

 

a god

 

then follow the path that leads into the wood 

 

trace map lines across bark

 

follow Pan

imbibe with them

 

feign 

forest lust

 

find the hut

 

a head rolls out

 

back dated 

 

because we’re thick.

 

 TOLLESBURY

 

Hoovering low above the dyke, classic white underbelly. Ian appears, the garden is lovely. More enclosure hangs on signs. A round plastic camera eyes the marina. Ebb tide again. Egret comes in and out of the frame. White plume antenna in the wind. Lonely farms where cars sit idling but no one is about. No one is ever about. 

The dull thud of distant explosions the sound of sand and mortar.

Paths across the marsh tail off here and there. Flies furiously guard their peninsular. Yes there may be adders but no I have never seen one. Memorials. Sea and sky are interchangeable. A fifty year old wooden border fence is now more lichen than wood. It pays to have a shed in the basement car port. The old familiar rotting hulks have been replaced with new familiar rotting hulks. It doesn’t take long for the mud to stake its claim. Rusted metal shoots sprout from the cracked earth.

An old digger head hung low.

Where’s the sea dad? Over there out there near that giant tomb of split atoms and deep buried rods. Everything’s been carved up and gouged out. Only the birds were here before. That line of poplars and the freshly painted play-ground.

Bury yourself on the way out.