Green fingered gulleys caress
The bridlepaths and folleys
Of the Sylph’s stomping-ground.
Khaarkhesh and Morland,
Resident spirits, claw and gush
Across these lands.
They take what they can, wringing
Pennies out of well-squeezed notes,
Stealing singular socks from widows’
Washing machines.
Got those magic fingers.
Got that translucent tapdance across the evening.
Got that billion day hangover that sobs amongst
Cigarette-butt pebbles and beer-can ashes.

 
Up the valley the children
Form circles. Gin scent and warm
Marijuana stench slosh around in
Splashes and gasps, orbiting like
The firmament. Tyrone and Chelsie
Melt into the bushes, off to play.
Singings and dancings shout
Diazepam! Coca Cola! Cellotape!
Luscious primates of the night, clap hands!
Rub out the last sleep from rolling eyes
And embrace the first mornings of life!

 
Khaarkhesh and Morland, stub-faced
And belly-slack, hang from ancient lamp-posts
And stare. Walkers are trudging by
Cradling maps like plates of spaghetti.
They’re environmentalists and they’re lost as hell.
The land here neglects the
Map’s instructions, just as Khaarkhesh
And Morland relish from within
To sleep nights in the ribcage of a dead animal,
To hose down plants with the first dew of daybreak,
To see that the land is of the rivers
As the clouds are of the sky
And in all of the above
Not to be ashamed.

 
I hear of it often
From the rotting mouths of daffodils
That are kissed so roughly by the insect…
Unrest is where I live now,
Walking along a conveyer belt,
In a factory of the tourist industry.
Khaarkhesh and Morland; they’ll patter
On between hunting bands,
And hunting bans, land,
Sand and Man’s short span
Of time. I’m yesterday’s monster
And tomorrow’s fertiliser.


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