hot, isn’t it

blackbirds drinking
in the haze of summer
from dog bowls
and sprinklered puddles

gulls spiralling in updrafts
above the melting roads
feeding on clouds
of winged ants

and in the gardens
everyone
dead in the sun

__________

Notes:

1. Written on 23rd July, 2019
2. And also originally it had an extra verse
3. That read:

Butterflies locked
in their helical dance
above sun-yellowed grass

Tale #64: Memorial for the executed generals of the siege of Colchester

A town built upon the dead
the starved
and the murdered
and those left to die
in the deprivations
of imprisonment

and in the flames too
and the fire
of earlier devastations

We don’t remember the names
of the innocent beneath our feet

Yet the names of those that
should have died nameless in their guilt

we repeat them
we repeat them

__________

Notes:

1. Written in March, 2018