Thickets

 

Thickets

 

 

There’s no shortage of degenerative growth

every morning - taking a reassuring swallow

of agreeably bitter coffee, thick on the throat,

draining a mug to fill the hollows.

On brambled trees, deep throaty chokes

of wood pigeons, birdbrains all, but he’s low –

a baritone east of bass, what he knows

he surely rumbles to tendrils tugging fences –

ineffectual barriers; last lines of defences.

 

They could only keep electricity switched on

haphazardly, Coker, Masen and the rest,

some hazard Wyndam drafted in to advance tension

and the Triffids, ramming barricades, were blessed

with a primal intelligence such vegetation

must surely have, an urge to usurp what was left –

and there was a sickness that flew the night,

linked to circumnavigating, artificial satellites

ringing lines of latitude like necks; burning bright.

 

There’s a beauty deep in those woods

beyond pickets, dark sung songs for everyone

composed carelessly from indifferent thickets - should

mean something, but don’t. Yesterday, spending long

hours scrubbing dust, carpets thick with floods

of undisturbed mites, she’s calling from beyond:

We must go home, dear, where you and I belong.

And, on the orders of some listless general

another child lies injured by the falling shrapnel.