Blood Month

We trudge through the smoke filled field,
the cold and mud of Murrayfield park*;
the camera flash, of wailing candles,
pinning ribbons on the dark.

Huddled, shivering families gasp,
beneath the showers of burning gas;
the night air, thick with furnace smells
or sulphurous fumes of burned-out spells.

Laughing children feed the flames,
a tragic phoenix, poor 'Guy' Fawkes;
dragged out for annual damnation,
and incant the words they're taught.

"See the fate of naughty children,
little ones who play with fire!";
their patchwork creature blazes;
little Libby waves her sparkler.

Another blinding mushroom,
with red fountains, veins the gloom
of a night-sky that's star crowded
like a black loam sprouting crosses.

Boiling soup keeps out the chill
and morphine, made of paper poppies,
clouds their heads with smothering dreams;
drowns out fumes and dying screams.

“And now we hear ‘The March Of The Gladiators’ played
and see the stumbling corpses killed in carpet bombing raids;
the carnival of carnivores and clowns provokes a laugh;
a sentimental centipede crawls past the cenotaph”.

I’d rather wear Bellis perennis in Spring;
famous spring , the womb of the whole earth;
praise the steadfast roots of evergreens
or remember autumnal life, august and common;
Earth anthem or war-cry of chrysanthemums;
the self-immolation of Autumn leaves falling
and the sorrowless sobbing of doves.

Murrayfield Park* = A nearby park where I used to watch Fireworks, on Guy Fawkes night, as a child.