POETRY

Sunflowers  - Vincent Van Gogh

SUNFLOWER

Down at the pub, the rumours had soon spread :
our local farmer’s selling off his land.
When goat-man left and pheasant farm shut down,
we realised there was truth in what was said.

Soon, other tenants left their grazing land —
moved horses on, their meadows left to weeds,
rusty with ragwort, pastures overgrown —
a change the roaming deer can’t understand.

Birds leave the hedgerows, rabbits on the run
as men and their machines rip up the land;
at the site entrance they erect a sign :
Building Communities For Everyone….

But not for hawthorn, fox, orchid or deer  —
those residents have gone, their fields stripped bare.
On this sterile plane earth’s heaped in piles,
nothing’s left alive on the levels here.

Pipes and bricks arrive all Summer long
but, while the men were busy on the site,
Nature crept back to green those heaps of soil
and, on the highest, planted something strong.

Unnoticed, this plant grew more each day
till giant golden face turned to the sun.
This was Nature’s turn, a defiant sign —
two fingers to those stealing land away

GIANTS

They came, skimming our chimney pots,
one summer day when we were out —
just reaching to the field beyond.
Our startled neighbour told us how
she’d watched transfixed, holding her breath,
as wickerwork just cleared the roof.

This morning they were back again
on driest, calmest day for weeks :
when sun burnt off the valley’s mist
and set damp cobwebs glittering.

I opened doors for cool fresh air
but caught a growing, roaring sound —
a giant’s panting laboured breath.
A fiery red face glowered down
to billow over field–edged oak.

For seconds it stood quite erect,
towering over house and tree
then nylon rippled and collapsed
to stubble field, descends from skies :
colossus, creeping down to rest.

Ants seemed to pull a giant low
and roll away the canopy —
packing the basket with his face.
Now, they must wait for transport home :
their day over, mine just begun.

MIRAGE

Out of the field, trotting with silent tread,
through nettles, under birch and hazel boughs,
we’d seen the signs : he’d visited before,
in winter’s frost and January’s snow…
but not mid-afternoon in hot July.

Nonchalantly jogging, taking his time,
passed dozing family cat across parched lawn,
he paused to look about, close by the house,
ignoring us although we’d caught his eye.

He held us all transfixed. No thought fox this —
but real – unlike Hughes’ dream. We watched him go
on down the drive, beyond the patio
where we all rubbed our eyes at what we’d seen.

ABOUT THE HOUSE

A helicopter lands out in the grounds
and soon a limo churns the drive to dust
with guests who feel their stature is enough
to make this discrete drive along the limes.

The house pays for itself as an hotel —
fine dining in the splendour of the past —
where kings and courtesans, the famous stayed,
but would these ones who pay be Nancy’s types?

Would Nancy have approved a giant slide
for entertaining masses at her home?
The Water Garden’s like some city park
near café and a playground for the young.

And what of weekend hordes out in the grounds,
with buggies, picnic baskets, screaming kids?
But luckily they seem to stay away
From quiet parts of Cliveden I like best :

The Secret Garden, views from Canning’s Oak.
How Nancy’s face looks down on soldier’s rest;
sad cemetery for pets at Illex Grove
and grassy seats used at Britannia’s test.

On autumn days, when mums and kids have gone,
green woodpeckers inspect The Balustrade
and, in the woodland, muntjacs ghost between
the fruiting chestnuts, rhododendron’s shade.

In quiet times the sense of how things were
seems captured in the changing of the light —
a shadow on the terrace over there,
a sudden gust of wind puts birds to flight.

THE BUTTERFLY BUSH

Self-sown, on waste ground, in old masonry,
it’s found a toehold on old factory sites,
populates the ruins of stately homes.
Once a cultivar, it slipped away
to set up home beside the railway tracks,
on abandoned buildings, sprouts from broken paths.
Buddleia can outgrow some native plants,
seeds germinate on dry and hostile ground;
its panicles of tiny lilac flowers
are where the bees and butterflies are found.
And, at a time with species in decline,
when campaigns urge Save Butterflies and Bees
our government has found time to decide
that buddleia is no more than a weed…

DEFRA (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Has declared buddleia to be an “invasive alien species.”

PERKINS’ FARM

Trespassing. Secret borders of the farm
where boys from our estate would stray between
banked dead nettles, cow parsley and the stream.
Beyond the cinder bank the broken barn :

ramshackle cars, forsaken old machines;
nearby, deep water channelled over rocks,
splashing bricked sides below the ragged docks
and once, dream like, kingfishers here were seen.

Above the rocks the stream more calmly moved :
watery home of rat and vole, hunting
ground for adventurous boys with working
slug gun, catapult, stones... and aim unproved.

Then there was our Tree : a crazy willow
leaning giddily across the stream, an
unsupported ladder of green fronds — span
for the stream that flowed dark and deep below.

High in the crest (some said where lightning struck)
the trunk had split : a hollow gallery.
Here we perched, The Boys, full of bonhomie :
joking, boasting of girls, cursing our luck.

It was The Muckers tree — formidable
to climb, with bark worn smooth, nowhere to grip,
the sloping trunk...and water should you slip —
crow's nest view : prize for the brave and able.

But then the farm was sold. Our Tree dug-up
when brook was channelled, dredged and gentrified.
Farmhouse and barn were bulldozed down. We sighed
for lost forever fields of buttercups,

the herds of Friesian cows, and meadow sweet.
When land was levelled — hedges all grubbed up —
school replacing orchard and pond’s kingcups —
Our landscape turned to houses, street on street.

Today, more suburbs march across green space.
We concrete over land our parents knew;
but landscape should be children’s rights and due,
yet more and more is lost without a trace.

Muckers – Gloucester dialect for friend or mate.

ARUM MACULATUM

A flasher's in the undergrowth!
From cowl-like spathe, a spadix looms:
poker-shaped, purple and erect.

This plant's strange notoriety
relates to how it looks in Spring —
its bearing's spawned some bawdy names
like Adam and Eve, Cows and Bulls
Jack in the Pulpit, Naked Boys.

Its common name of Cuckoo Pint
sounds innocent but it's not right
as “Pint” should really rhyme with “mint”…
Priest's Pintle tells a different tale.

This plant has got a hundred names
and folklore's built up down the years:
some gullible young country girls
believed that just to touch a leaf
would make them pregnant overnight.

Well known for its toxicity,
in Tudor times the plant was used
by washer-women starching ruffs,
their burnt and blistered hands confirmed
the harmful nature of Starch Root.

By Autumn how the Arum's changed:
died back, green cowl and arrow leaves,
now plant appears as Naked Girls —
brazen and pale, ringed with bright beads...
These berries send to A & E
more casualties than other plants...
Most dangerous, the Cuckoo Pint.

SLEEPLESS

My prostate is an evil swine,
it wakes me through the night,
its message is “You need the loo !! ” —
Surely that can’t be right?

Convinced, I think my bladder’s full
and trek off for a pee...
Now, wide-awake from broken sleep
I find I cannot wee.

The signs are there — I need the loo
but barely raise a tinkle;
tired out and I’m back to bed
to sleep like Rip Van Winkle.

It seems I’ve hardly been asleep
when woken up again
by that very strange sensation
that signals :“Bladder must be drained.”

So, several times throughout the night
I’m up and down like this —
sleep deprived and tired out
because I cannot piss…

The Harvester - Vincent Van Gogh