Deep One of Toad Hall
By Cardinal Cox
Pull the oars, pull; feather the blade
Beside river find a sweet glade
They say on fine summer mornings
Lord Pan walks where the river bends
Fields are worked by burley farmers
Beyond where the green forest ends
There’s a courthouse where law is done
Along the winding country road
In the Hall dwell a family
Who’ve much of the look of a toad
Pull the oars, pull; feather the blade
Make sure the game is fairly played
Dragonflies over the tall reeds
Kingfisher on shimmering wing
At dusk the silent owls all hunt
At dawn the smallest birds all sing
Rabbits on the misty heathland
Foxes hidden in the dark woods
Mighty Lord Toad would rule them all
With firm webbed hand, if only he could
Pull the oars, pull; feather the blade
Naughty young stoats have all been slayed
Butterfly Cinquain
By David Edwards
Nature
takes many roles…
Judge, Baker, Actor, Clown…
yet unnatural ones give it
renown.
hard, translucent; soft, misshapen;
the grotesque; the bizarre;
things better left
unfound.
seed hidden in earth
shell snaps open reveals life
nothing known on earth
By DJ Tyrer
vines reaching
twitching
alive with animal spirit
strange fruits
burst messily
amniotic fluid
life finds a way
refuses constraints
of natural world
By Aeronwy Dafies
earth worms underfoot
after each night’s downpouring
a living sidewalk
By David Edwards
Wintercourse/ Through The Moon Pool
By Andrew Darlington
first
hollowed from grey shale
by horse’s hooves of centuries
shallow pool of shadows
glimpsed at winter intervals
south of shifting spires
then
shaped by bleak seasons
and the strange wintercourse
of north wind and snow when
ice makes lanterns flicker
and lacerates its surface
into cross-hatch wounds
a night pool spindle-limbed
with mirrored moonfrost
beneath the leafless
meteor-flash night
horse haunts night waters
no skin and half a rider
northern isles horror
By Aeronwy Dafies
View From Atlantis 