Smoke and Dogs

Its smoke from an e-cig not the tobacco variety if you're wondering. Didn't realise so much was there till the sun came through the window.

Debutantes

I; progenitor upon an evening path

As the climax of summer erupts
The ants arise in smoky layers
Impinge upon the lowering sun
Gossamer wings and honeyed lines
In sleek waves of amber nobility
That weave and flex into night
A million debutantes are dancing
Wings brush skin; legs cling to hair
And I walk in clouds of contact
Beneath antiquities emerging stars
And what of their future
The men shall be king for a day
And the ladies queens for eternity
Sacredly revered in subterranean secret
By the watchwomen of the earth
These hunters of the unspeakable
Devourers of the wretched
And harvesters of dark gardens
Overlooked beneath our clumsy feet
But for one night everything changes
And a royal waltz is played at sunset
But I shall not be asked to dance

Doevecote

To this new refuge earth we give our thanks

Along with greens and seed, bred and ledge
Now no more nights are spent in thorny hedge
And to this new home we will humbly pledge
That though upon you head we'll gladly poop
We'll never defile inside our hexagonal coop

I made a hexagonal dovecote and though I don't think the angles would please Pythagoras it all came together with copious amounts on brute force and wood glue (and it only cost £20)

Lesson

And see this thing of beauty that I plucked like a jewel from its stem. But this thing of splendour is also a sorrow to me, for though its magnificence cannot be doubted by my selfish deed have I plucked out the eye from the face of the rose. And then is it a worthwhile theft to treasure so briefly a thing of loveliness within the hand and watch it swift to its fading? Or is it better, to gaze and be enchanted by its fragrant charms as it sits upon its thorny structure till it wanes and fails as nature intended. And then knowing that is so, gaze at this flower you have stolen and wish all you may, but you cannot put it back and therein lies the greatest lesson we will ever learn.

Tryst

A year divides three hundred and sixty five

But not one division has a passion for me
And whether heat or cold may come
My loins maintain this temperate constancy
And nothing can break upon this surety
Not more time, or hope, or opportunity
But the ants they are another matter
Their subterranean labyrinth erupts
In an orgasm of fertilities cornucopia
It ejaculates alates by the thousand
Expulsive fruition of slavish devotion
They weave in amber lines across dusk
And approach me like their progenitor
Then they are gone into supple night
To make their trysts under the stars
Amber satyrs of one consensual feast
Then as the searchlight of day fails
Sated they slip into cracks of their doom
A prison to hold them captive forever
In a tender devotion of familial bonds

Kernel

Shake the tree and see what falls

And perhaps I say too much
In a certainty no one is listening
For I think not to bare my soul
Only reveal some layers of concern
And as each disquiet falls away
It may seem they are all gone
And I am left bare and naked
But it only seems that way
For I keep safe my kernel of being
And despite my overstatement
No one has germinated that yet
It is a tough nut to crack apart
And time doth make it harder

Dragonfly

Seek shelter under July sky

Change arrives; entwined lie
These empty husks did not die
They simply learnt how to fly

July Garden

 

Layers

The green layers are high above us

In canopies that pleasures our sight
There a greater wisdom holds control
Than the bullies below in chaotic might
And the layers we cannot ever reach them
But always strive to reach the light
For we need to be that better person
You know in your hear feels right
And always it's best to be off -ground
When the world they finally set alight
And take some comfort in knowing
We never wished for this pointless fight
Never stop your climbing upward
Attempt ever to gain the greater height
Focus only a better tomorrow
And do not linger near the vicious night
For as we come closer to the layers
The less the beasts underneath may bite

Legacy

We sever our common sentience easily

Blame returns as a hunter of conscience
To disparate lives built upon weakness
The grace of our gentler trust slumbers
Sleeps in these uneasy truces of ignorance
And once kinship if safely veiled in doubt
It does not easily weaken in its censure
It lingers ever brooding in the darkness
As we close our eyes to unnecessary loss
And in bloody dreams of ruin do we sleep
And we may live long on this wretched legacy
But always there is one chance to awake
And restore what remains of fairness
For adaptation is never come too late
To save a madness of unremitting conflict
Of our expanding war against each other

Political ambition

Draped on its box of secrets

The cloak of invisible deals
Wraps politics in its embrace   
And ambition is a precious dust
Grimy aspiration clinging to chance
Waiting like a hopeful patience
For winds of change to disturb it
So it be thought indiscriminate
But it always lies still again
So easy it settles upon its past
When the clouds of opprobrium pass

The Rose

At last the lady doth reveal herself; she is fragrant and opens in red energy to the dawn. She will have no less than the want of all men's eyes upon her till sunset comes and then within the sweet calm of night she will arouse within them their secrets of day. For maturity comes and with it the passion of expectation is played upon the green lawns of July. For this is the daughter of William Shakespeare and we would have no less to grace our garden

 

 

Pensylavnia Sunset (Lancaster Co)

From my friend Scott (UK sunset for comparison)

June Photos

Random photos while out with the dog

Dragonflies

This first picture is of a dragonfly that has emerged from a nymph that has attached itself onto a nymph case from a previous day. it has not been out long and its body is transparent green to the sunlight

 

Nice clear nymph case photo

 

Ready to shimmer and fly away

 

 

 

 

There have been 21 Southern hawkers come out the pond so far this year.

Exchange

And with such dark dreams

They have grown and slumbered
Slithered in the dark depths
Now the sleepers awake
To haul themselves out one world
And take their place in another
Exchange states; water to air
And now they whirl upon sunlight
And brush upon the summer stars

 

 

Brexit

The fuel of our difference is spent

The great hearth burns slower today
Settles fast upon its slighted ashes
Sifting its grief to worthless regrets
No pictures flicker within the flames
Save a last burning petition of regret
A fading image of a hopeless reprieve
And so it has no warmth to give now
Therefore we let it go out; let it rest
Reflect upon these cold days of division
But when it is remade anew as of old
In its warmth we will come together again

Consort

A kiss of the equine's consort

Upon the tender skin of man
And this sweet summer world
Is how you repay me?
Not in kind words or music
Nor peaceful idyll under climbing skies
But with fangs and stings
With this despised and pitiable fly
Your winged, monstrous vampire
That slips and sneaks upon us
In bloody, unbowed requirement
To ever take without soliciting
And leave this week of violence
Aflame in the wretched flesh

Rise

Washing green ferns
In the morning mist
It rises like new gold
Feel the warmth
Of the new solstice
Become primitive again
Worship the sun
Taste summer's tang
On the early dawn

Sleep

Be at peace special one

Rise with the morning sun

Walk among the flowers
And rest upon the dusk
Though I am not with you
I followed your trail today
Till you lay down and slept
And as you closed your eyes
I saw the peace of the world
Was with you
Then I left you alone to dream
With a piece of my heart
So you won't be without a friend
When next you awake
  

Deception

Just one seed planted in sour furrows

Will grow upon the soil of mistrust
And germinate into such ugly truth
By the misguided or the Machiavellian
Lies fly like bitter arrows about us
And not one is aimed true to the mark
Yet if enough false bolts are fired in deceit
One surely makes its mark upon the facts
To wound its message with confusion
And lies need but one germ of legitimacy
For most to believe its exaggeration
Lies are a complex and subtle deception
For always is a truth hidden within?

Tears

The young calves have been taken away from the mothers and they seem rather sad at the minute. This cow looks as though it is crying.

The relaxing garden area

The strangest fungus shape I have seen so far in a tree hole at the lake

Yellow Iris against the grey sky

Empire

And where does an empire go?

It merely rests, slumbers incognito
Sleepwalking through time
Till it awakes still hungry
And we are again devoured
For no empire has failed
It merely exchanged owners
Or location
And always we one day awake
With a new master
But the mistress remains ever the same

Sleep

Sleep now the dancing was stopped

There is no more of your laughter
Into the warm summer nights
Friendships end, families grieve
Hate has triumphed for a day
Articulated its malevolence in violence
But love is the much stronger voice
So we will speak our words gently
Lest any more of our heart withers
And hate finds a voice here in us

Elvenkind

The cloth of foresight draped about them
Bright as a moonlight that never dims
Never to let courage slip into despair
They are elvenkind for the good or ill
The fate of mortals is not their master
And all their winters pass into spring
They are the life ages of the earth
Made into a soft tissue of the world

See

Like a clear water we are now

Till our transparency shall fail
Time's glacial ice thicken around us
So even our eyes cannot pierce hope
Then nothing of us can be saved
And this is our cold treasure
Long winter's spent in starlight
Laid under a ceiling of ebony
Studded in glittering diamonds
And this bitter yet sweet existence
It is not for mortals to taste
But we feast upon each morsel
In a banquet of joy and regrets
For we are the elvenkind
And have seen every life age of the world

Heron and Geese

Vanity

When all the world you have comes today

Then the butterfly cannot pause for long
It cannot linger on the frailty of dreams
Nothing of beauty may tarry upon whimsy
For the fastest way to travel is by vanity
From each flower, to flower, to flower

Willow

An army of renewal unleashed upon airs

Feather-clad warriors of the spring willow*
We are invaded by falling snow in June
White plumes soaring upon the clement air
For the fastest way to travel is by vanity
And nature gifts them downy wings to fly on

*The willow trees are letting go their seeds with aplomb at the minute. While sat in the garden yesterday the floating seeds looked liked snow floating down in the sunlight. Never seen that before.

Icons

In patience we will again defer

While the old ladies confer
And always we must wait
While ever they deliberate
But I expect no resolution
To all the ongoing confusion
Hours they talk of nothing new
Till they go to nap just after two
Once awake the conversations continue
At the start of the same vocal avenue
But we would have no other ending
Nowhere else this time we'd be spending
For old ladies are dear beyond compare
Icons in sensible shoes with lavender hair

June Garden

Guide

Nature is a companion

A guide and confidante
It is not our enemy
Some wild thing
To tame of its excess
For it is as helpless as we
To fight injustice and longing
Repeatedly savaged by time
Unmade and remodelled
And still nature calls this hope
Though it is unfathomable
Measured against our few years
It holds this world closer than we

Assault

And rainclouds come to assail us

Black bruises upon a cerulean skin
Now is a grey assault of moisture
Hands slapping away a sunny day
And always it ends in teary gloom
Leaden droplets of solidified vapours
That fall like a longing from above
Unto all the gentle sheep and lambs
Grazing swift upon the grassy fields
Lanolin washes into fractured pasture
To soothe and soften the eager earth

Cloth

Summer comes to slip off cloth

Reveal the winter guarded flesh
To wash in light our hidden coves  
Release aspirations we hid like sirens  
And so long as the warmth holds
We can see each other anew
The young reveal who we were
And we show what they become
And as the summer slips our cloths
We are remade carefree a little while

Redoubtable

This redoubtable insect spitfire

Controlling the burgeoning borders
A scything, predatorous, machine
Hunter-destroyer; ally and marauder
And harry not the warrior
Let her pass and fight
For to hinder her deadly mission
Will make her deploy her might

Concern

Because he wanted to put his wings to the test

The eager little brown bird flew out of the nest
But his new wings were really much too small
And so down to earth he did quickly fall
It was lucky giants found him and put him in a bush
His mum found him, now he's learned not to rush
For little birds with wings that don’t yet flap
When they fly a nest early usually end up in the crap
And this is a lesson we could all do to learn
If something is in trouble then show some concern

Contort

It's not good to be flexible so all the evidence points

So pity the poor Contortia and all her double joints
Soft and supple she twists and flexes like a rubber band
She can shape her fluid body into a flowing ampersand
But all this gymnastic performing will never get her wed  
No man wants a wife with eyes in the back of her head

Fall of Empire

It is always upsetting to accidentally knock a wasp nest down when gardening but they build in the most peculiar places sometimes. It seemed particularly poignant the other day when the spent blossom petals were blowing. Here's hoping she manages to raise another nest somewhere else. Wasps are the unsung and mostly despised angels within the garden. A world without bees would be less sweet but a world without wasps would be a world filled with a lot more bugs.

And the incandescent queen rages

As her paper kingdom is blown away
The empire collapses before it has begun
Topples from high grace to ruinous fibres
Falls amongst the velvet snowdrifts
Where the blossom fails, falls and fades
And the papery coffers of her undertaking
Are emptied of their larval ghosts by the wind
To desiccate and cease under the midday sun
Among the coral petals laid on the sandy dun

 

Dr Who

 

This is me having a Dr Who moment with a model I bought for a pound to use in the garden and a real size replica at BBC Salford. It seemed a good idea at the time.

 

The Rose

When a deer crossed my path

Well then that was a blessing
But when it devoured my rose
Then I knew it could be a curse
This nemesis of the rose in spring
And should I again meet him
Under greening bough at dusk
It is more than a pound of flesh
I shall warrant will be taken
For I shall have his haunch
And it will be venison for tea
And poor Mr Shakespeare
Alas, only a tragedy
Will you write this year

Soldiers

Towering siege engines rise up

The lofty mechanism of assault
And this is no gentle coup
War is now upon us
And nature's green soldiers
Mass upon the boughs and fields
And we may fight it
Become a partisan of order
But we will ever lose
The green tide sweeps the world
And the wise do not fight it
But are carried on its verdant crest
And remain at peace in growth's war

Care

And now all that remains

Are his indentured teeth and worldly pains
The play of a man in its final act
With walking stick and cataract
There was nothing much of him left
Save his anger and frustration
And no one really cared
Save to comment quietly
That his grumpy manner was unseemly
But in his youth not so long ago
Women had vied to be his beau

Silent Spring

Mad as bees we buzz in our excitement

While dogs bark with the fury of geese
But it is quiet in the fields in May
The terranean world is motionless
Though ants still move like dissidents
Milling secretly under the damping earth
With the precision of centurions
But where are the honey gatherers now
This rattle and hum in hedgerow and border
The yellow and black buzzing animation
And still the rain comes down chattering
Watery wings beating upon us like prophecy
And into this we weigh sense against chaos
Only to find all are now driven mad in loss
Like the ants milling in precision in the dark
For none are ever made saner by folly
And the bees they are less than they were
And in turn we are made the lesser also
For a world without bees is no world at all
And the silent spring arrives late and inaudibly

Desire

In my youth came forth desire

Yet twas the smallest of sparks
And never did it erupt
Spill out like a volcanic fury
Into a blaze of passion
And now it is all gone
I know not when or how
Only that once it warmed me
But still I am not spent
Not yet; not while,
There are other fires to be had
Fires that burn with gentler flame
Into the long nights to come
Fires that can never consume me
For what is desire?
But the longing for a release
However that may come