Half Cut

If God planted the grass

then the Devil rolled out the lawnmower.

Poems written in a GMB diary while working in grounds maintenance.

Dogging Site.

 

Litter picking Lockleaze sports fields

dog shit
nos cannisters
smashed bud bottles
used johnnies
a dido box- 'upshot'- 'thrusting pleasures'
balloons
Dar finds something- "mind out Tom
it's a dead mouse."
It's a used tampon.
I'm glad it's nothing dead.
Pick up your litter.

Green Moment
There is some beauty in
the sheer straight split
between the clean level cut line
that the mower has eaten and
blasted out
and the rough, thick growth waiting

 

all waiting in jade and emerald and 

dew drop and tree frog

and granny smith and wine bottle
in the early morning sun.

Typical
Daily I am exposed
to ignorant idiocies;
flagrant racism barely dampened
by knowledge of its distaste, 

consant eye-gagging of women,
innocent women, busy women,
human women- object women,
politics shrugged off
yet the left despised
and fascism unquestioned.
knee-jerk justice thirsts,
no tolerance; you can
trace the tail that informed
them- like UV lit rodent piss.
Still, I've got to talk to somebody all day.

 
A Meal
If you cut grass
and leave the bleeding mush
on the lawn
the grass grows thicker,
greener.
Plants are beautiful cannibals.

Gone
Small yellow flowers on stilts
creeping buttercup in the lawn
and poppy flame on the concrete edge
bunches of daisy heads
confident first reddish leaves of maples.

all the dock and nettles that ladybirds will hunt on

all the fronds of yarrow with eggshell flowers

sharp wall rocket and fat milk thistle

"scalp it"
yes boss.

COVID Days 
we're not willing to die for our work
we're just required to turn up for the possibility
we weren't put here to do this shit
you have no more purpose than the birds in the sky
it only ends
when the world ends
whether that is your last blink
or the sun's consuming hunger.
basically:
I'd rather not die from a disease
contracted while half-awake
on a work week I clench my eyes shut for
and wish past.

Dogsbody
The Dogsbody                                      
all grunts and shifts
Jack of all trades, master of none

Jack o' nothin' master a' nothin'

bark palms and blasted cheeks
musty, sun-bleached cap.
Body of dogs.