Butterfly

He, the small boy,

two, three maybe,

eyes alive, puzzled, inquisitive,

tugs the wings off a butterfly

eager to know how it works,

maybe understand it a little, he,

innocently snuffing out a brief beautiful life. 

I wonder when he’ll realise

that we,

his teachers, his guides, his role models,

eyes tight shut, blind,

greedy for the needs the wants of now;

rip the wings of everything,

including ourselves.

Anna :o[

Sherry at earthweal asks us to write of how climate change and loss of habitat impacts on the animal kingdom.

During my research into threatened species in the UK, I came across this endangered list on the Countryfile page and it was the image of the small tortoiseshell butterfly that stood out to me.  I cannot honestly recall when I saw this butterfly flutter around my garden but know it will have been a long long time ago.  The only butterfly I see is the common white although that maybe is only three or four in an entire year.

Seeing the image of the butterfly made me think of my children when they were young and now my small grandchildren innocently squishing the life out of insects, unaware (until told) that they are living breathing and beautiful creations.

It also reminded me as when a child (five-six maybe), I and my friends sometimes caught dragonflies, put them in Welfare Foods dried baby milk tins and kicked the tin around until the dragonfly was dead.  Why we did this I don’t know, but the memory is still there some sixty years on and I know this is down to guilt, for even then, something inside of me knew that it was wrong.

Apart from pollinating bees, I think we humans tend to forget the insect kingdom, as insects are not warm-blooded and potentially cuddly, but oh we need them so so much, they are the earth’s levellers.  We really really need them!   Our lives depend on them.

Please read The Insect Apocalypse Is Here, featured in The New York Times Magazine – it a very informative interesting and educational read.  And rather scary too…

Having just looked out of the French doors here, looking at nothing in particular,  made me remember that for the past three years or so, in summer months, when the doors are open, pesky flies rarely enter this room, perhaps only once to thrice a year.  Where have they all gone?

Image:  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author:  Rob Young from United Kingdom

Chaos

In utero, slumbering  

budding into fruitful blossom,

I awoke,    here,    in this place,

twixt linens pure, pristine & niveous,

now splattered haemochrome,

cast chaotic, torn of loves labours,

contractions’   

of earthly surrogate.

(She: accoucheuse, fat and hoary,

bites through umbilicus.)  

A birthing,

footling born of chaos

toe dipping into Mother Earth,

I sang of Satan, hailed his glory.

Women wailing 

cluttered into corners,

black in wretched robes of mourning,

mourning my deliverance,

freedom from confines of merest mortal,

accoucheuse bite   and worldly tether torn.

Oh you fools virid of envy,

minds icteritious of greed –

how well you do my work,

feed my lust my hunger 

my want of your destruction,

stoke fires of your eternal hell.

The devils spawn,

I am born of your desire,

you harbingers of the death,

destroyers of all tomorrows, 

how well you do my work!

Do my work,

rape your Earth,

bleed her dry.

I shall spread my wings

fly into your tomorrows,

suck sulphureous sun cerulean skies

into my atrous heart.

(Wings fluttering will cast a storm  

the like you’ve never known.)

Anna :o]

These words first published in 2014, re- posted today for earthweal open link weekend #3.  Cheers Brendan.

Image: courtesy of flickr 

Daphne

The squiggly presentation was the hallmark of Daphne’s chirography, unmistakable to him; his heart skipped a beat and then thumped on his chest wall as if begging him to read the beauty and wisdom of her words now!   Of course he did.

She was a difficult one and getting her to put pen to paper was more than a little velitation, more so full battle requiring he and his lab assistants to goad her relentlessly (he was surprised at his ready ability to be cruel) and once enraged the words would eruct from her like some volcano simmering below the surface, suddenly spewing forth its matter in a violent torrent.

Her work was a strange masterpiece indeed for not only was she the subject of his research, clever little thing that she was, she was actually writing his research paper too.   He could visualise it being poured over, scrutinised by his peers and then the acclaim, the acclaim, the acclaim!

He felt a smug smile crease his face, he sniggered; he had taken literally the challenge of the idiom "that a half-dozen monkeys provided with typewriters would, in a few eternities, produce all the books in the British Museum."   It was not that he expected her to scribe a full library, rather a single tome of exquisite beauty, bursting at the seams with infinite wisdom.

Only difference was, he had given her a cheap biro and no other monkeys or eternities needed thank you very much – just regular shocks from a cattle prod, until painfully defeated, she came up (screeching) with the goods.

Anna :o]

Shared with the good folk at Poets & Storytellers United hosted by the lovely Magaly, cheers Magaly!

Image:  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author:  New York Zoological Society

Fog

Prognathism: mandiblular: his chin juts out –

like Beachy Head (he thinks) or barracuda;

juts out defiant neath tight upper lip.

He hates this.  He hates his tiny tiny little mouth,

wishes God had given     more thought to his creation.   

He has weighed up the odds,

the odds the risks of complications;

surgery – nervous (as he is of it),

he will sit it out, indefinite. 

Despite his sore self-seen affliction –

he has it all (he thinks) –

he has the sea and she and Lucky Lady. 

She?  He has this notion she is leaving. 

Is she leaving him?  

He feels her withdraw,

a moody ebbing ocean leaving,

leaving in its wake a lonely barren shore.

She: distressed, stress manifests cutaneous,

her silvery scales remind her of the fish;

that fish (bass she thinks) that flapped and flailed,

hooked as it was to certain death,

its tiny tiny little mouth gasping gaping drowning.

It simmered on the galley stove,

simmered in its briny waters. 

He herbed and lemoned it,

seasoned it, hot alive with peppercorn. 

He savoured it, the smell of it. 

Succulent, it melted in her mouth just as his kisses did. 

His kisses did, and then it came, came horizontal,

(as she had always lain before him (always always wanting him)),

came horizontal rolling fogging up her mind;

lost in it    she found herself    almost invisible. 

Distracted then (by it) she slowly drifted into it;

no, it took her hooked her reeled her in (flapping, flailing).

He is losing her;

lost she is to some lonely barren shore,

where darkness offers itself     the infinite,

ebbing as she is,    towards it,

gasping gaping slowly drowning.

Anna :o]

Happy New Year to all and many thanks Magaly for first hosting on Poets and Storytellers United  new site – the start of many new adventures for me.

I haven’t posted for nigh on a year, initially through writers block then I guess I just got out of the habit of testing and using my imagination.

So upon your lead, I will start this New Year afresh too, although not quite…  As, as I really haven’t got my poetry mojo back yet, I have pulled an old post from 2014 to share and will endeavour to respond with new stuff on further prompts.

Looking forward to writing again!

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: Gillfoto