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Category: Vegetation

354 • Boa sting

354 • Boa sting

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Said a blustering braggart from Bingley,
‘I can swallow ten scorpions, singly,
Then twelve jalapenos
That burn like volcanoes
And still swear my tonsils aren’t tingly.’

I challenged him, ‘Chew on this pie
Packed with gunpowder, chillies, and lye.’
(And gravy so gingery
Permanent injury
Threatened his throat, by the by).

Then I watched the first slice disappear
And his silly fat face lost its sneer:
As his gums glowed red hot, his
Engorged epiglottis
Put paid to his boasting career.

Of course I concede that the above bulletin is not entirely true, and that it was not penned for publication at My Dog Errol, but rather on the ‘Readers’ Homilies’ page in our Parish Magazine. It illustrates something from the Bible, as I recall. It was rejected by the Vicar (on grounds of length, I can only assume). 

314 • National Trust

314 • National Trust

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The groundsman reports to the Duchess:
‘Your lobster needs five pairs of crutches
Having ricked his ten knees
On the flying trapeze
That we built by the pond where his hutch is.

‘And, begging your Ladyship’s pardon
We’ve finished landscaping The Garden:
Your flora and fauna
Are crammed in one corner.
This concrete takes ten years to harden.’

Meanwhile, back in Merrie England, the serfs pay lip-service to the whims of the landed classes, and the needs of their exploited livestock, while covertly expediting the blind March of Progress which tramples all before it.

244 • Frozen

244 • Frozen

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Seduction is strained, in Siberia
Where trysts mostly end in hysteria.
‘I despise you!’ they shrill,
Vaulting over the cill
And abseiling down the wisteria.

I admit it’s a good while since I had an apartment in Tomsk, so I trust readers will excuse my memory if certain botanical details in this brief, and otherwise veridical, scenario strike them as inauthentic.

233 • Escapology

233 • Escapology

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What joy to live out in the park,
And skulk in the bushes till dark!
Then catch cocker spaniels
To fry in Jack Daniel’s,
And start forest fires with one spark!

The Pastoral Impulse has a long and healthy history, but this outlaw’s short-sighted manifesto merely catalogues the reckless and ignoble impulses of a vainglorious deviant from whom any genuine Noble Savage would recoil with contempt.

166 • Deep Fake

166 • Deep Fake

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That evening with Truman Capote
He praised the great power of peyote.
I think it was him,
Though he looked pretty grim,
Part capon and partly coyote.

Ingestion of psychoactive substances is a significant component in many a religious ritual, and our species surely benefits from experiencing, or seeming to experience, the world from the viewpoint of non-human, ‘totemic’ animals. In the present bulletin, however, it’s unclear whether the author, or the writer he alludes to, is under the drug’s influence.

149 • The Florist’s Tale

149 • The Florist’s Tale

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‘It’s tragic,’ declared Robin Hood,
‘My public has misunderstood
Why I left Sherwood Forest
To work as a florist.
Fact is, I’m allergic to wood.’

As we contemplate the inn-signs of Merrie England, this ‘Hood’ is typically presented as some kind of macho archetype. Reading between the lines of his own account, however, suggests the erstwhile outlaw was none too comfortable in that role: in soliciting public compassion, he boldly goes against the grain.

130 • Attaboy!

130 • Attaboy!

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‘Well of course, he’s a National Icon.
Have you sat through his series on lichen?’
David Attenborough’s voice
Makes the whole world rejoice
(Or despair, when he’s not turned the mike on).

Yesterday the great man turned 94. He’s one of the few homegrown celebs the British media haven’t yet found a way of undermining. No doubt their lenses are trained on him night and day, hoping to snap inappropriate touching with a Venus flytrap, or lewd banter with a limpet. #MeNeither

045 • Ciara and Dennis

045 • Ciara and Dennis

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They sit in the tempest, together
(She tickles his nose with a feather,
He scratches her sternum
With sprigs of laburnum)
Ignoring the world and the weather.

Valentine’s Day typically falls a in month of storms and tempests. True lovers, however, rise above any meteorological inconvenience.