July | 2022 | journalread

Flittermice weave over reeking moonshine
cross-eyed and woozy on rising fumes

chase paper-like moths through the dense night-time
jaws snap away to roosts the moths to consume

a charge for the moth from a hot light bulb
a scorch a burned bum a lucky escape

but echolocation doesn’t see the bat dulled
dinner tonight is in his mouth draped

the reek of the moonshine the rise of vapour
has chemically altered the mammal’s ability

he weaves and he wavers his wings act as tracers
but the dread-filled moth makes a dart of agility

another lucky escape

The Alchemy of 42 (Black Pear Press, 2020)

From the Malvern Hills section of Growing Places

Swifts

Silence and solitude unbroken drops
a sense of stillness, soundlessness flutters,
no soul to disturb the cool, calm hilltop,
Midsummer Hill smothers sighs, hushed, shuttered.
And then from the west come the saucy swifts,
swooping and singing, playing today, while
they wait to migrate, chase, drift, flit and lift,
wings skitter, dip and dance to the sundial.
What joy in aloneness, how glad the sight,
a ballet of darting, diving divas
so rare, a flock of sure swifts in full flight,
they plunge, lunge and soar in joie de vivre.
There’s none to disturb the cool, calm hilltop,
Midsummer Hill sighs in silence, shuttered.

Growing Places (Black Pear Press, 2021)