Write Lion: August 2011

Extract from Shod
by Mark Goodwin

... So, homelessly alone
but strangely not lonely,

and honest as the day
relates to the night,

to begin my feet’s
leathery journey,

I put my best foot forward
followed by my worst

but equally loved,

I put one foot in front of the other
and then the other in front of that

and kept

            repeating this simple
            repeating this simple
            repeating this simple
physical mantra. I trod
on & on. I tramped around

ground - green, brown,
or grey, rural, urban, or rurban.

This just for the just sake
of new secreted footwear
and the great free need to spread
The Good Shoes ...

A City Campsite, Berlin
by Matthew Spence

Then to show off Japhy started a wood fire and said “Here’s what we do
up in that real country up North,” and dumped too much Kerosene into the fire but ran away from the stove and waited like a mischievous boy and broom! the stove let out a deep rumbling explosion way inside that I could feel the shock of clear across the room. He’d almost done it that time. Then he said to her poor fiancé “well, you know any good positions for honeymoon night?”

From The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac

The flat bit around the pool   is drained, pegged to sand with tents.
Picks and boots trudge in past the gate   clinks shut  every minute or so.
It’s freezing right now, smoking
Drum beating shouting city night, and we won’t sleep.
But you should see it in the morning
about 7;
the travellers trudging to piss    their bodies sprawl twisted together,
still shackled breathing
barely clothed, happily lying in the grass,
with enough sun to warm their naked backs,
with their bags as pillows.

 

Pecking Order
by Di Slaney

Before, I was the one in charge,
or at least allowed to think so.
None as fast, as smart, as large

as me, prepared to tackle low
yet aiming high, fixated on the prize.
But now the only thing to show

for glory days and chartless rise
is thumping in my head.
In this new world of slipshod lies

and scrapping over crumbs, I’m dead
if one more bashing comes my way.
I’m grateful just to sleep, be fed,

stay safe to fight another day.
I’ll wait. No rush. I plan to have my say.

Living in a large communal group termed a flock, a strict hierarchy exists to promote social harmony.  There is a strict ‘pecking order’, with a dominant male and female having access to the best feeding and nesting areas ... the highest ranking bird will peck all those beneath her, while the lowest ranking bird is pecked by all.

Beeken, L. (2010) Haynes Chicken Manual, 2nd ed. Yeovil: Haynes Publishing
       

The Blacksmith
by Jeremy Duffield       

Yesterday,
in a small park in Nottingham,
I saw a man shoeing a hobby-horse.

Leaves were falling with an early frost
as he worked, bare to the waist,
with a rubber hammer.

Afterwards,
as the horse leaned against the bench,
a bright expression in its painted eye,
I watched the man
darn an imaginary hole
in an imaginary shirt,
at his feet a bolt of silver cloth
across the grass.

A crowd had gathered;
some with cameras, some with notebooks,
some with quizzical grins,
and as the man darned
the cameras clicked and flashed
while the hobby-horse rested.

Later, returning
as darkness was settling,
all that remained was a long coat
on a low branch,
an imaginary shirt,
a dispersed crowd,
and hoof prints in silver.

Ode to Bob Dylan on his 70th Birthday
by Lord Biro

The times they are a-changing, Bob
in China, Egypt, Spain
but visit "The March Hare"
on Carlton Road, Nottingham
and things are just the same.

The Landlady's still wearing
a "bee-hive", there's a
a juke-box near the bar
where Elvis sings
"The Wonder of You
for making it this far!"

 

 

 

 

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