In Praise of a Pet

Little one, my first friend. I named you for a story, the 1950s volume,
my mother brought out like a surprise every
Christmas – Belinda, my rabbit.
all nose twitch and whiskers,
and power kicks when least expected.

Sometimes you would romp the garden,
tunnelling in the flowerbeds, excavating borders,
looking for an escape route, like that other story rabbit.
You always put up a fight
when we cornered you, guilty among the radishes.

One morning you left a surprise.
It was clear you had been to the ball,
no longer a stay at home, minding the hutch,
tending the run in envy
while your wilder cousins danced out by the full moon’s gaze.

Your prince wore a red fur coat and a special smile,
and I like to think there was a wild kiss chase,
where like Rhiannon, you didn’t stop –
not until he asked nicely.
There was no glass slipper, just ears

as a memento, placed beneath my favourite apple tree,
A lucky paw, unlucky for you,
dropped under the mulberry like a charm.
Little one, I never replaced you,
but I keep your power – always unexpected.

-Ali Jones

Flora and Fauna

Held captive
As
You gaze,
I wonder
How long
This will last.
Your friends, and my own
Rest silently
Nearby In some lush meadow,
Where, surely,
Soon I’ll join my ancestors In the earth,
To spring forth
Again; feed your young, Or dress a table.
When all is lost, loss offers new gains.

-st

I promise

to shower you with daisies,
keep you fat on petals and love.
I promise to hold you
close to my heart when you feel afraid,
whisper soothing words
into your ears,
stroke them gently.
I promise to share my secrets,
to lavish you with affection,
even the parts of you that are worn.
Especially the parts of you that are worn.
I promise to lock sadness in a box,
hide it on a high shelf so you never
have to see how much life hurts.
I promise to open the gate,
release you into a field
of sunflowers,
and remind you every day
that you are home.

-Susan Richardson

Honey Bunny (children’s poem)
=========================
The bunny scrambles with a rose,
hassles towards the valley and goes
to meet his lover waiting from long.
She’s jittery, livid and headstrong.
On reaching bunny bows on knees
and offers piece of cottage cheese.
Declining food she turns her back
and bunny gets anxiety attack!
Next up he gives her sugar ball.
and tiny effort hits the wall.
Then finally he gives the rose.
The happy lady jumps on toes.
She kisses bunny on his lip—
He smiles; all went as per the script!

-Jay Gandhi

Escaped

I am caged, cooped up, kept in.
He pokes freshly pulled grass
and leaves through the thin wire.

I am bigger than this prison
he cleans occasionally
whilst I hop about the garden,

Explore escape routes, test fences
and garden walls for weaknesses, before
I am grabbed, cuddled and imprisoned again.

One morning he will find the door hanging
by one hinge after I have busted out.
One morning he will cry because I am free.

-Paul Brookes

Daft Buck

Boing !
That thing that makes bulbs burst ;
flowers bloom.
That primal tingle,
as yer loins swell.

Ask the birds – ‘What makes them sing ?’
Brings bud to shoot, fruit from everything.
“It’s Spring –
Can’t you tell ?”

The early bird, distracted by the worm
gets pinned
by a hedge-meadow hunter
silent on the wing.

I’ll give it a minute before goin’ art ;
Preen me fur into a fetching ruff ;
Tek me mind off beak and claws.

“Eyup Doe,
have a look at this beauty”, he lobbed.
“Grew it myself over t’ winter.
My dad had 4900 kids
proper grafter.”
Its a F-word

Fecundity
Douglas Adams said we’re genetically blessed,
but that’s only half o’ t’ game –
yer need gift ‘t gab to charm the bunnies.
Or cunning,

I leave a tasty Dandelion –
distracts ’em just long enough.

Short-term memory yer average Rabbit.
Not me, super-intelligent –
Watch QI most nights through Granny’s window.
You have to lip read.

Rabbit gossip’s a bit samey ; grazing and bobbing.
It’s a day job, but this –
is a special assignment from Gaia
a gift from the goddess ;
Queen of passion and desire.

“Oh, I love Spring, me !”
“Excuse me, madam
my forleleg doth shake.
Aye, it’s Rent-A-Ride . . .
Fancy a nibble ?”

“It mek’s thee feel a million dollars !”
“You can ‘av it on tick
I’m a lover and a fighter
Aye, it’s as long as its thick
Yes luv, It does mek yer feel lighter.”

“All you need is a docile temperament and to stop still –
What d’ya mean, ‘you don’t know if you will’ ?
Go round t’ back of the queue
I’ve a lot on wi’ all these frisky fillies to do.”

Three hundred degree vision
I’m grateful for these eyes.

Oh, thy are cute
innocent like
wi’ a nose like an hot-cross bun
dappled white-brown
soft as a chick-down.
You’ve never met a buck ?

The Romantic beginner –
You can spot ’em a mile off
Green as the grass but they soon catch on.

I stifled a laugh, doffed me cap,
slid down both braces.
Just watch the birdies while I do t’ work ;
twitch in all t’ right places.

And she said,
“Are you hungry ?” “Vet says I’ve got Myopia.”
I’m thinking, Myxamatosis.
And I said,
“This is gonna open thi’ eyes.”

-John Wolf

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell

The Lucky Hook

I always remember when we’d gather to watch,
the plug-hole whirlpool, vortex or portal to a magic kingdom.
We were convinced that we’d fly into another world,
where we could talk to animals, and trees might well
scoop us up in leafy arms and take us for a ride.

At the fair that autumn I fished a yolk yellow duck,
from a bare bulbed pool, taken in by the caller’s cry,
To try my luck, to win a prize from the lofty shelf, behind.
some were always out of reach – the house always wins.

I was happy with the plastic consolation, a dinosaur,
My mother part embarrassed and more indignant, when,
the brash faced man asked if I would rather have another –
A ‘little girl’s prize’ he called it – but I knew the dinosaur

was meant to come with me. I played with it in the bath,
washing off the glitter and tilt, and cling of apples, cinder toffee,
candy floss caught in my hair, and gobbled like a cloud –
held in the hands, yet already going away over the hills.

My dinosaur was slippery as a secret, and didn’t last long enough,
not even for a name.It danced in waves of Matey, as when,
I was extracted and the plug pulled, it followed the whirlpool steps, choreographed to swim into an underwater world of walking trees.

I should have begged my Dad to mine the garden,lift the manhole cover,
pry the archeology of what we wash away, – rubbish and treasure can be the same things, just wearing different clothing. But I didn’t – I cried into my empty palm,keening, while my monster friend swam free at last.

-Ali Jones

Destinations

Companions of the deep,
Where do you roam?
You look the same Awake, and asleep.
Do you ever fear
You’ll pass it by
— Your destination–
In your slumber?
Or, do you have one?
The whole sea,
And each other
Are your home.

-st

Free Death

The bubbles in aquarium
continually judge
themselves and trudge
before they pop.

In the deep seas they swim
and raft along the tides,
celebrate life
before they pop.

-Jay Gandhi

Majesty of Silence

We sink beneath the waves
where sound dies
and is reborn in a majesty of silence.
I watch my voice float
so softly
from the tip of my tongue,
quietly leave the confines of my body,
longing to break the surface.
It is easy here in the water,
to turn away from pain,
to feel weightless and beautiful,
to forget.
We swim together,
faces eager to reach the secrets
waiting for us
in the cradle of solitude below,
feet pointed to the sky
in a tranquil gesture of farewell.

-Susan Richardson

The Cost Is Prohibitive

to refreeze the poles,
bury carbon dioxide beneath the oceans,

to save our fellow animals extinction,
the death of insects.

We have to watch the pennies
to manage this extinction event.

The cost will be too high.
We could bankrupt ourselves
to save the earth.

Is it worth becoming paupers
to save this planet?

Count the pennies in your purse.
Count the lives in your hands.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell

Persephone

Sometimes it takes a blast from above to wake
us up.
a crack of energy smacking the air, electricity,
ripe and dangerous.

Sometimes it takes a storm to clear the decks,
the pitch and glitter,
to roll us dangerously from tide to time,
nearly capsizing, but righting just in time.

Sometimes it takes a long night of the blackest depths,
to take us far underground,
where there are no promises
of return words fade away.

Sometimes it takes a near apocalypse
to make you seen the lone tree,
reaching for tomorrow,
always striving on, as clouds break to full sun.

-Ali Jones

My Flame

flickers cold shadows over your skin,
dances into your curves as a cloud
passes over a valley its shadow dips
towards a swerve of water,

the dark copse darkened by the sip
the sup of clear water that beckons
my tongue taste its brightnesses
that is the perfume in your curves.

-Paul Brookes

Feathers

(for Sarah)

After my mother died,
feathers seemed to tumble
from the sky,
small patches of light piercing
through the grip of a tempest,
appearing in the most unlikely places.

The first one I found on the white shag rug
that covered my bedroom floor,
dark as ink with red
running through it like veins,
as I danced alone to Earth Wind and Fire,
my mother’s favorite band.

Another, bushy and plentiful,
spotted like the tail of a calico cat,
I found nestled on the seat next to me
in an empty movie theater.

Marking a page in my most treasured book,
one my mother had given me as a gift,
I discovered a feather so delicate,
it could only have come from a dove.

For years I kept every feather I found,
on car seats and park benches,
in coat pockets and buried in coin purses.
I believed each feather was a message,
my mother reaching out
from wherever people go when they die.

I didn’t know Sarah then.

We met decades later,
when grief colored
every inch of her landscape,
strength and sorrow inseparable.

The morning her mother died,
a feather appeared,
breathless like a petal,
in the middle of my kitchen floor.

-Susan Richardson

Empathy

Horizon is grey except
a patch of white—
Dark skies have
disowned this chunk.

This odd man travels
tirelessly with clouds
to align itself over
a stripped barren tree.

All other trees in
the vicinity are green.

-Jay Gandhi

withering

Faced with the eye of the storm,
I find my roots are too deep to run.
I wither as I wait.
“This too shall pass.”

-st

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell