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“I have come for my brains.” remarked the Scarecrow, a little uneasily.

 

https://soundcloud.com/bid3/scarecrow 

 

This poem was first published online in issue 3 of Puffin Review

http://www.puffinreview.com/content/content/scarecrow-richard-biddle

My mouth was a painted grimace

on a straw-filled potato sack.

I could not speak lips or tongue.

My words came from scraps

and wasteland –

rats’ feet over broken glass

Dust blew into my cracked

eyes. I could not cry.

Sometimes I sagged on this pole, like

A stilled flag. I was a wind-beggar.

I could hold up my bag-head if I chose

but usually I stared down at my scuffed shoes –

One brown, one black, no laces,

pegged in place by bulldog clips, they

hang from my trousers – like suicides.

Empty glove hands flap no fingers.

What wouldn’t I have given for a bone or

a blackened tooth?

Now my intestines itch madly, were I human

a tapeworm would be less irritating.

It’s all kept inside with strong twine and

A belt buckle.

These days - I wish I’d tear open. Let

the crows peck me slack, become

a dishrag.

Six weeks ago,

after I was given my reason,

they nailed me up here,

two sticks crossed and tied,

broken broom handles.

That’s the biggest joke of all.

Before, when I was an earwig’s nest,

these thoughts did not exist.

Now I know what I am –

I’m a sham.

A pest controller, a bird scarer,

A dead man’s Sunday best.

And I’m useless at it –

This is my last day on field duty.

They’ve been building it for a week –

Paper, twigs, unwanted furniture

logs. Everything chopped and stacked

piled up like a witch’s hat.

It’s all been dried out and dowsed in

petrol.

Sacrifice is too strong a word for it,

I’m a device.

Up there’s a chair with three legs.

The coronation throne where later

I’ll receive my cardboard crown.

From tortured fool to murdered king

in a flash.

Oh how my new brains will burn.

Flight

This poem first appeared in issue 26 of 'Urthona' magazine http://urthona.com/

we walk

and we talk

about this and that

loneliness

people

the future

lost in our worries

we spot two magpies

we are trying not to be

superstitious

from our hilltop

vantage point

we notice shafts

of golden sunlight

radiating towards the sea

suddenly

we are drawn

to a fluttering

in the hedgerow

we look down

and see a thrush

struggling

we stop and ponder

what to do

a bird with a

broken wing

is a sad thing

it is scared

so are we

we do nothing

and move on

Anima

This poem was commended in the first 'Poems Please Me' poetry competition

 

http://www.poemsplease.me/?page_id=397

 

 

Anima

 

On the beach, with the evening sun behind me, I splay my legs and

outstretch my arms in a pose of childlike joy and I’m a boy again.

My shadow spills its fuzzy-edged exaggeration on the wet sand and

she traces her finger around my blurred outline, mapping my boundaries.

Perimeter-drawn in the soft silt, we examine the daub and laugh at

the monstrous claws she’s given me instead of hands – lobsterman.

We gather stones – chalk and flint for his bones and meat – And seaweed –

a mess of kelp for his hair. Resplendent in this mineral and vegetable garb

we declare him complete and stare out to sea. Before we leave – a final act

I stand one rock on end, erect. The tide turns. Potent and proud, we watch

the waves rise. The salty waters swirl around his insides and slowly drag

him back into their dark depths, alive.

A Bequest

This poem was first published in issue 29 of @brittlestarmag http://www.brittlestar.org.uk/

https://soundcloud.com/bid3/wednesday-11-48-am

When I die take my eyes. Scoop them from their sockets

with a spoon. They are to be your beacons. They will shine

an eternal blinking light. Raise my tangled hair. Shave my scalp

bare. Toss the wiry strands into the waves where, as seaweed

they will pocket the air. Slide a scalpel beneath my nostrils and

slice off my nose. Cut away my lips put them aside. Find a pair

of pliers and, one at a time, remove my teeth. They will be needed later.

Sever my head from where it rests with a cleaver. Boil up a cauldron.

When the first angry bubbles appear, drop the decapitation in. Bleach

it clean of skin and mess. Remove the skull from the soup with wooden

tongues. Place it on one side to cool. When warm to the touch saw off

the top – the cranium. Upturned this bone bowl, this crude pot is your boat.

For the sails flay my back, its leathery hide will catch the promised

winds. Go back to the nose. Holding it carefully submerge it so

its tip protrudes just above the surface of this phantom ocean. If done

correctly an iceberg will form. Steer clear of this. The lips next,

top and bottom by now blue. Laid alongside the skull-ship

they will become whales. For a while they shall swim with you

protecting you from storms but eventually they will move on to spawn.

What’s left? Oh yes – the nipples, the navel and the nails. Do what you will

with my sex and scrotal sack. The nipples will multiply quickly.

They will be the barnacles that grace the hull of your vessel.

The navel when placed upon the waves will begin to rotate,

slowly at first like a clock’s minute hand but gradually it will

speed up and become an immense whirlpool. Like the nasal iceberg,

this belly-button vortex must be avoided at all costs. The nails

will fall to the ocean floor, at this depth, settled among the silt;

they will eventually sprout legs and pincers. They are destined

to be the hardened shells of crabs. As for the rest – Whatever remains

of my plundered torso, I hope for an island, on which, after many

adventures you will become a castaway. Here to live out your dying days

amid the cracks and crevices of the rotting carcass of my swollen corpse turned

archipelago. And finally the teeth, for these a special ending. Take each one

and drill tiny holes through them. Thread them onto a string and knot it tightly.

I could have left you twenty-eight stars but instead I gift you this

lunar calendar, a cyclical abacus to place around your neck.

Wear this moon-jewellery with pride. It is my final endowment to you.

A dowry – Ebb and flow, wax and wane, gravitational pull – the tides.

https://soundcloud.com/bid3/wednesday-11-48-am