Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I saw her again the other day

For the first time out in sunshine

Smiling, bright and happy

Laughing with the other guests

At some dreary garden party

And I admired her whitened skin

Pearlescent clear

Smooth and unblemished

Her long elegant arms

And her perfect figure

Exquisitely displayed

In her low-cut summer dress

And as she turned away

To talk to someone else

Revealing the perfect curve of her back

I could see the merest whipline

A long extended tongue

Curling from out the mouth

Of the dragon hidden there

Emerging from beneath

The taut and silken edge

Of the light material

Where it entwined itself

And inter-mingled

With the crouching tiger

Peeking out from just below

And I thought of the ferocity

Of these two snarling beasts

Which invaded the empty canvas of her skin

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017

Mole

Mole

Early morning garden wandering

Feeling the wetness of dew

From the lawn’s long grass

Soaking through the shoe-soles

I stumble across something

That upsets the leisurely stroll

The tell-tale signs of spoil-heaps

The unmistakeable evidence

Of the presence of mole

Mounds are scattered round

Creating an irregular landscape

Pitted by small soil-mountains

Piles of loam above ground

Tunnelled out from down below

Such vandalism is not caused by the vole

These burrowings and diggings

Are of something a size larger

That can only suggest mole

I can trace the track of his wanderings

The lines that betray channels below

As he blindly pursues his lone destiny

And I wonder if he ever pokes his head up

To see where he’s got to today?

The underneath’s now riddled with holes

A scene of rural despoilation

Where the worms have scattered in panic

In their heedless flight from the mole

And I’ll whack the piles with a spade

Trying to flatten them down once again

In a quite futile gesture of anger

That will do little good in the end

For my little invader won’t be deterred

And I know deep down in my soul

That once he’s taken up residence

He’ll stick around for some time

And I’ll be sharing my lawn with a mole

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017

Morning

Morning

Running down a darkened hallway

Towards an opening door

Where light floods around

And falls in upon the floor

Suddenly there is sound again

Rushing, scraping, scratching

And an end to thoughts and dreams

To schemes of reddened skies

To floating boulders slowly turning

To sweeping clouds of yellow

And the bellowing, aching roar

Of a lone walrus upon a deserted shore

To the flutter of dry and dusty leaves

Driven, wind-blown, swirling

To the clatter of hooves

Of blue-skinned ponies trotting

Through a cold and empty square

The space echoing back the sound

To the voids of blackened eye-holes

Of grotesque, trembling skulls

And which, after an endless time

Slowly dissolve and desiccate

Into the crystals of the waking world

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017

Cough

Cough

There’s something that I need to get off my chest

For I’m feeling rather queasy

And my breathing’s gone all wheezy

I reckon I’m scoring about a seven

On the International scale

The Cough Index of Looseness

I don’t think there’s any question

That I’ve got some bronchial congestion

And I need to make a major contribution

To the UK Phlegm and Mucus Depository

This soothing menthol mixture

May become a bedside fixture

This special fruit and honey syrup

Has made me Expectorant of a cure

For it’s the thing that Linctus together

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017

News From Bromham - Dateline Sunday 5th February 2017

Bulletin From Bromham: Dateline – Sunday 5^th February 2017

Here is our weekly round-up of events from Bromham:

                                                    

1.      Panic buying occurred at the Village Shop this week when it was realised that the weather had been “a bit shit” in parts of the village’s vegetable-growing fields.  It was feared that there may be shortages of root-crops, particularly mangel-wurzels.  Customers were being restricted to three carrots and two parsnips each.  When asked about the shortages of softer salad crops such as romaine lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers from Southern Spain, shop-keeper Ivor Bigun said that this was not a problem – “nobody in the village eats salad” he said.

2.      The long-running dispute between the tractor drivers and the Tractor Operating Company (TOC) in the village has finally been resolved.  In a historic agreement, tractors will now be driven by only one man, but the tractor cabin doors will be closed by another man.  This will be true on Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays, but different procedures will apply on alternate days.  However, when it is raining, and the temperature is below 18C and the wind is from the West, then special rules will apply.  Except on Sundays, obviously.

3.      For details of these and all other Bromham stories, don’t forget to listen to local radio station Carrot FM.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017

An Eight-Year-Old's Guide To Ski-ing

(An Eight Year-old’s) Guide To Ski-ing (as written in the half-term essay for the class)

This half-term we went on holiday

Daddy said that we were off to ski

I’d no idea what he was on about

It seemed like a barmy idea to me

There was problems at the airport

When we was flying out that day

The baggage-handlers went on strike

And in the lounge we had to stay

Daddy spent a long time worrying

About whether there’d be any snow

Because even if there wasn’t

He said we’d still be forced to go

But when we got there it was ice and powder

The weather was absolutely freezing

And even Mummy was quite happy

Until my sister started sneezing

So she was confined to bed

Which didn’t really bother me

But the rest of us got out our equipment

And got ourselves prepared to ski

We all had bright blue puffa jackets

Over the top of thermal ski-suits

We had goggles and gloves with toggles

And ski-pants and pairs of massive boots

And we drove off to the ski-lift

To the top of the mountain if you will

Then slid all the way back down again

It’s a thing they call “downhill”

I couldn’t see the point of what we did

Slaloming down that dangerous drop

We’d only just get to the safety of the bottom

Then we’d simply head back to the top!

And we did that all the blooming day

Repeatedly riding up and sliding down

Oh, and drinking lots of gluh-wein

Before we made it back to town

Then we all came back in high spirits

We’d had a good day - that was easy to see

Then we ate and drank all night

In something known as “apres-ski”

  

It must have been the Alpine atmosphere

Or the charms of where we stayed

Because Mummy became suspicious

And caught Daddy kissing the chalet-maid

Well, she wasn’t very happy

And shouted at him, called him a beast

And wasn’t going to put up with it

Nor let him think he could go off-piste

Next day we was under a bit of a cloud

And Daddy said he wasn’t having any fun

So he stalked off all on his own

To tackle something called a “black run”

Apparently he wasn’t supposed to do that

Everyone told him that it wasn’t any joke

But he still went off and hit a tree

And that’s how his leg got broke

So he was carted off to the hospital

In another town in France

Which was when Mummy discovered

That we didn’t have enough insurance

He was put in traction and in plaster

To heal his fractured limb

The credit card bill just grew and grew

And things were looking rather grim.

Then the weather turned much worse

With raging blizzards that made us blanch

And we were trapped for two days

The town was buried by an avalanche

And when we finally made it home

Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t even talk

I don’t think we’ll be going ski-ing again

Well – not until Daddy learns to walk.

  

 Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017

Botswana

Botswana

The drift of woodsmoke

Its tendrils curling through the air

The kettles set to boil above the licking flames

As we sit around the campfire

Staring into embers

Listening to the grumble of distant thunder

The intermittent flash of lightning

Across the far horizon

Through the darkening clouds

Threatening the coming of the long-awaited rains

We gaze across the scrubland, the wasted desert

And the arid desiccation of the salt pans

The calm of the delta shattered

By cicadas screeching in the cooling air

And the booming of lions calling in the night

Then we remember sipping rooibos by the river

The journey of giraffes, the dazzle of zebras

And the disputatious baboons, chattering and screaming

The subsonic rumble of elephants

In the land of trunk and tusk and trumpeting

The circling of vultures, aerial indicators

Then the smell of the kill

Ripped and torn and freshly flayed

Guts and blood, white and red

Spilled upon the dusty ground

And under the early starlit sky

The bleached bones of earlier victims

Long finger-shadows cast

By the burning disc of a sinking sun

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017