Summer’s last testament

All the swifts are gone. No matter how long

you scan the dusk, they’ve vanished overnight.

Set your sights lower: eyeball to eyeball

with dragonflies. In brisk vacillation

of glassy wings, glimpse a jewelled turning.

Warm yourself. Level out. Let windows yawn,  

for slowly – like a sigh – the year exhales,

ripens into shape. Its skin hardening.

 

Fructidor: the season of scratched forearms.

Juice-stained fingers pick grass from cycle gears,

burrs cling to footwear after foraging.

Love, time now to re-weave our rambling rose.

Show me where, in August’s shortening light,

I should cut away the weary deadwood.

 

 

ix. 2024

Directive to the Cabinet of Doctor de Pfeffel

There shall be no account without denial.

No dead reckoning but three-word waiver,

nor scrutiny by a non-believer.

No washed-up refugee not put to trial.

No profit squeezing while welfare’s frozen.

No donor cronies left disappointed,

nor cut-glass accent not been moulded,

nor mob rule – only the few get chosen.

 

And should you think this regime cruel and crude

and find yourself in search of reverse gear,

don’t go wondering why everyone colludes –

the future is better when lived in fear.

Wear a hard hat, put on hi-vis grandeur.

Stake your claim: what’s the price of being poor?

 

 ii. 2022