Nutters

 

Nutters

 

Say what you like - but watch your back,

because there are nutters everywhere.

Attack-squirrels, brimful of nut-sacks

scuffling up and down both sides

of half-painted clapboard fences.

They hoard against gathering winter’s

rattling wind, bone and splinter,

sabretooth tigers with plastic gnashers.

They’ll hurl nuts, the odd three or four,

any more might constitute extravagance,

better not take that chance,

but dance on old jokes, one in every bite.

Reds and greys square up to fight,

out from under beds, out of their trees:

crows, as well, here’s four following

big boss birds, smiling, swallowing,

flaps for where a mouth should be,

shake tail feathers, keep it flying,

and while an elder squirrel’s expiring

watch even more nutters being raised,

shredding hope and born forlorn,

you can’t help but feel a shade upset,

while reading the trails of corn they peck.