Halloween

Hollywood enters  Halloween

Theatre meets its theurgy

And tis a horror best left unseen

For who can make such a fun

Of these frightening things

When by terror are we all undone

Yet I cannot suppose we care

If evil should indeed be seen

Already in our world it is there

So if you will enjoy the evil day

Make sure you have a mind

Your pretend dread will go away

Wither

Time now becomes witness

To a splendorous withering

The flowers are all fading

Desiccating as autumn leaves

Naught can restore their colour

For their vibrant instance is over

So let the wind blow and rage

Cast sepals and petals to earth

For what remains is ever, intact

The seeds endure and can wait

For new days that come again

And spring occasion births them

Flicker

The honey has dripped away

Bitter is this winter to come

The sharp days dull like pain

Blur around a growing dark

Beauty withdraws its grace

We are become winter bees

Inside fragile hives of dreams

With only flickering firelight

To draw memories of better days

To Rest

Rest now upon the ages

Night has come

For a child of the sun

She withdraws her light

That shone upon us all

And our days shall become darker

But in this unwelcome gloom

This unlooked for quiet

She may find sleep now

Become a ship becalmed

Slumbering through ages

On an ocean of flowers

She may take her rest

On her long missed lovers arm

And wait for sweet reunions

That one by one

Will come to her

When our winters' fall

Fury

These days come upon us wet

A feral water crashing in fury

Upon the tall, wooden cliffs

Shore and tree line lock to furious battle

As the wild seas break like awakening

Winter comes home from the west

Skyward look as leaves fall like comets

Shadowy snowflakes slide down glass

Liquid stone rupturing upon heat

New days are made to slumber in

As wasps crackle and wither in starry airs

Wit

Granted it is a sharp barb, but no blade of dignity is this lesser part of courage we choose to call wit. It is the refuge of the scoundrel who would seek to usurp reason with jest and inconsequence than be ennobled by kindness. 

Mermaid

Today was made for the mer-people. Water swirls around my feet as though it would wish to make a fluid knot and slowly unbalance me; drag me down into a mermaid's arms. Is it not told that in the rain they come to the surface and watch us but that all we humans ever see are signs of decaying ripples left by these aquatic fairies. Expanding circlets of wonder left as they dive in their silvered robes, flashing long tails of black lined scales. Moreover, if you could hear them, they sing of the perils of the sea. A long slow lament of deep water and fading light within bottomless oceans. Though I must confess I have never seen a mermaid the legends makes their possibility all the more real;  for as science expands it seems only the mysteries that remain hidden and unexplained are the greatest enchantment still.

Kate in Manchester

Some pictures of Kate and William in Manchester last week taken by Mike and others. She looks so different in the top and bottom pictures.

Casualties

When I put the kitchen light on this morning, I could hear a tapping on the window. I opened the blind to see about thirty wasps flying aimlessly against the glass in an attempt to get to the light. The nest is breaking and anarchy is the queen now. The males have been evicted and the workers wander aimless and lost.

I make a light in the night and then shrink back

And tortured, purposeless they come to the window

Winged warrior queens in a vain and futile fluttering

The wasps are fading into the dawn in swarms of pain

Raging yellow- black stains on late summer's glassy page

Their summer almost done; they curse the new days

They now reject its unsolicited options like a tragedy

And were they to touch me they would surely strike

In a jaundiced ill that seeks only to assuage its pain

Piercing me with a sting, I could not draw out again

So I damp the light and retire into shadows once more

Let them rage and batter the glass for I cannot help

These bittersweet casualties of winters war against us

Halloween

It's a little early but i'll probably do another later. I made an animation to go along with it. 

Shadow on ceiling, window and wall

Monstrous silhouettes to chill and appall

Flickering shapes that form in the night

We hide under the covers; shake in fright

For what might slither from under the bed

Or lurk within a closet to fill us with dread

Vampires and werewolves, ogre and witch

A bestiary of monsters to our reason unstitch

And once the fiends your own eyes have seen

You will begin to believe about Halloween 

Fall

This folly, this whim, this optimism of day

Till dusk when I settle still to fade and fall

And so I lie, as the night flies soft about me

But still my dreams burn and rage against time

These hopes and wishes set ablaze in the hearth of day

To now be consumed in such disenchantment by night

Yet still I settle and still and I fade and fall

And in such a state am I revived again to rise

To rekindle the sweet anticipation for tomorrow 

Early October

Endgame

The last new hornet queen leaves the nest to make her way into the autumn as two of the workers watch by the entrance.

Vespa:   Well that's the last of them gone; finally we have some free time for us. It has been a hard summer getting all the new queens raised. You'd think we'd get a bit of gratitude from the old one, but no; might as well wish for jam everyday instead.

Crabro: If you think there will be any free time then I suggest you make the   best of it. Have you not noticed how cold it is becoming, or that the light fails ever earlier these days?

Vespa:   Hey I've been busy you know. Feeding these ungrateful new queens was pretty hectic. So what if the days are not as warm now.  We will fly only on the sunny days and spend the other time here at home among the family. Though I have to say the mood of the hive is so much gloomier of late. You think everyone would be happy to see the end of our great work.

Crabro: And there you have it. It is the end of our great work and also it is the end of us. You do understand we won't see another summer sister? We have completed our task in the great scheme of the world. We are not fertile and we cannot feed in the winter. We are expendable; there is no food and even if there were, we cannot survive its cold. We shall linger a few weeks more and maybe the frost will come late if we are lucky.

Vespa:    It doesn't seem to be very fair then. We do all the work and then die.

Crabro: Fairness is immaterial. The queen is worn out and ready to rest as are also most of us. The new queens have mated and will feed and then sleep till the days of spring return. Then completely alone they must begin all this again. Do not envy them sister for theirs is the hardest task of all.

Vespa:    What of the males then. Will they survive?

Crabro: The males who mate die soon after and the rest well they follow pretty soon after. They are bred for a single purpose and once they have left we do not let them back again.

Vespa:    How come you know all this happens to us sister and yet I do not?

Crabro: Because sometimes due to chance one of us workers will survive the awful winter and emerge again in the spring. I remember I fed and then I slept among the paper cells till the new queen awoke and then I was able to serve her.  This is my second year. I am older than the queen herself.

Vespa:    You know I always thought your wings were ragged. But I didn't like to say.

Crabro:   May I tell you a secret sister.

Vespa:    Of course

Crabro: I layed a single egg once and watched it for weeks till it hatched. It was a male and it was raised and in the autumn it flew out to mate and I never saw him again. I remember it had silver antennae which is very rare for us wasps. Normally they are completely black.

Vespa:  Can we lay eggs then? I thought only the queen could do that.

Crabro:  Normally that is the way of things but sometimes if we wish it enough we can produce them.

Vespa: I wonder what happened to your boy?

They sit on the paper comb silent and the old queen comes over.

Queen:    Come on girls, you know the rules; no loitering at the entrance. Away with you both; there is still some nectar to be had yet. She flicked them playfully with her silver antennae and they bowed and flew off into the dawn.

Vespa:  did you see; her antennae are silver

Crabro:  I always wondered about that too.