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.

 

            

Against Anti-Nature

Crumbling Wall at Blaise Castle Estate, Bristol

“The natural features defended as our inalienable British heritage are almost always Victorian- the Highlabd deer-scapes of Landseer, the stone-walled crofts of the Wool Boom, the hedges and fields of the Encosure Acts, grouse moors canalized rivers, even mature forestry plantations.”- Isabella Tree, Wilding, p.299

            I see the aftershock of the Victorians in almost ever gardening job I have done. The cultivation and primness of lawns of grass, a pointless and over-abundant crop… The disfiguring of trees and shrubs to make aesthetic, geometrically shaped hedges. The treatment of weeds, moss and bramble as placeless, plants with no sanctioned existence despite their various merits and niches. The fuss over ‘waste’- fallen leaves, fruits, branches, blossoms and other decompostable material.  As a gardener, I offset my desire to be close to nature and in the outdoors with he mutilation I am required to mete out to it in order to receive a wage.

Clearing all of the soft, golden leaves from underneath an oak tree feels like shaving a bear in the height of winter; at the onslaught of a stressful season we remove the trees detritus, which would blanket the soil encasing the roots, break down into said soil providing nutrients to the tree and the flora and fauna of the soil that aid the tree such as worms and mychorrizae. We remove the leaves because they look ‘messy’. Clients don’t realize when their trees die, that they could have lived for millennia if not for the pruning and fussing being attended to it.

            In schools and other sites, the neatness of Victorian nature and gardening has been coded into health and safety legislation; while vital, it can sometimes be overboard. (In the case of pathways being blocked etc. there should be no argument against; if I, an able bodied person am allowed to move freely then so should anyone be, no matter their disability.) there aren’t allowed to be slip hazards on concrete, no low branches, no toxic plants; minimized risk means maximised monoculture.

            We are absorbed by the aesthetic to the point we forget about the lives we manipulate to create it; this comes to head with the current market for astroturfed domestic lawns. It’s a plastic weave that eventually comes apart and sheds, absorbs no water; and must one day be replaced despite being non-recyclable. But you can have a barbecue on it, look out your window and see green. We have convinced ourselves a prototype, an imprint, a mould, is better than the real thing. (I’m eating my own tail here- I earlier argued against lawns, but they’re better than plastic! That being said it would be much better if you let your grass grow wild, or swap it for something that feeds you or nature.)

            ‘Lazy’ and ‘wild’ gardening, especially for crops, is becoming more popular, and to good measure- as all eras must be born anew from the previous, there must also be meditation on lessons best learnt from the past. A deconstruction of what was once known for the building of what we now know.