My dog lay on the backseat dripping blood
my wife worried about the seat, I screamed
to her to “fuck off”; rain obscure my mind
I have known my dog for fifteen years.

Stopped at a supermarket, bought a black bin
liner, to get the dog into it was hard work, she
was unyielding and suddenly so very heavy
and I had her blood on my hands.

I borrowed a spade from a farmer, dug a hole,
ground stony, it took time and I couldn’t see
for rain; when the hole was big enough it was
also full of mud as First World War trench

I put her into the grave anyway and filled it
with stones wouldn’t like other animals to
find and eat her. Sappy crap you may say, but
we had been together for fifteen years.

The moral base
For consuming human flesh
Is a green answer

Senryu

Is cannibalism
The practical green way
To save our planet?

Senryu

Let the old feel useful
Make them into hamburgers
And feed for cattle.

Senryu

Everybody can,
Not just Italians,
Be made into salami

Noticed when walking past the woods in the centre of this
town I had come to live many years ago was getting thinner,
rather like Castro’s beard that used to be so lush; I used to
walk here with my girlfriend, loved her and believed in true
love, alas, she though I was eccentric and used to regal her
shrieking friends in the bar with what I had said during our
trysts, and the woodland lost its enchantment.

Looked inside and discovered a wasteland of trees pulled
up by their roots and waiting for the chainsaw, nature had
lost another battle against bricks and mortar, only a necklace
of trees to give the illusion of forest. They were going to
build luxury bungalows here, protected from the glare of
the plebs by a ring of trees, houses advertised as investment
and not homes where one can find shelter from the storm.

On the pampas of Argentine I rode when surprised
by a blizzard, to survive I killed my horse split its
stomach open and crept inside, this saved my life
But when the blizzard stopped and I got out of my
shelter I looked for my rider and galloped home to
the ranch and ran around in the coral with the other
Horses that seemed surprised to see me.

Eventually I was lassoed and brought into a room
where I group of concerned friends tried to persuade
me that I was not a horse but just like them. Yes, in
a way they were right, I had noticed that they other
ran on four legs, I accepted my shortcomings and
stopped eating steppe grass; but I sold my ranch and
became a long distance runner.

Pornography films
Freedom of ones expression
Embarrassing I think
Private acts made public
Do make love cynical

If you go into the woods tonight, I murmured
a song, but it isn’t needed for I saw a ghost at
the supermarket, it hovered above the head of
of a hog that had an apple in its gob and saw
my ex girlfriend, lift the head up and kiss it
square on its leering lips and the fruit fall out
revealing a brown tongue; all the while she
whispered a name that had a familiar echo.
from an poisonous fairy specializing in weird,
semen drinking sex to a hag with teeth that
could chop a trunk in half. I will not go into
the woods to night, but she has such intense
eyes boring into my soul and seeing my secret
desires drawing me into her netherworld.

Sixty years today
Army parade and arrogance
While Gaza burns

Nation wakes in morning to another fright

Bash baby, smash baby, have you no shame

Nation suffers in mourning and feels all pain

Bash baby, smash baby, we have had enough

Go get help right now, there is no place left for tough

Bash baby, smash baby, another one is dead

We pay with consciences’ and all bow our heads

Bash baby, smash baby, there is no lullaby

Cruelty seeps in my town and I weep sad goodbyes

Copyright Deana Platt 10/4/08

and blows so intense that  

it drains colour from the

blue sky and gnaws roots

of roses scattering comfortable earth

earthshaking the giant chimneys of

fossil factories mere words that

can cartwheel this fragile gravity

throwing paper and debris and

scattering fetid, letter’d music in

a contagion of new life

Chris Parsons