LAPPING AT THE DOOR
1
Cobbett’s carrots and shallots
in well dug peat and straw
shots in awe forth and back,
to this other place, hung on
ley lines, borders, past hunters
yellow, veined with malt coursing
hares and dogs unrestrained pinned
rosettes in parlour, palms, bays,
differential values in valour, climatic
theist clamour, worldly glazed
porcelain tribes, heated, fixed
ties to runners, cottages, steadying
before sunshine lifts the heaving
virtues of fecundity, furtive looks,
outplaying verdant upskirt
surpassing, bypassing the two sexes
walled-in, mysterious, oval, ovoid
submerged sacred paths, erupted
in bed, patch, no longer solitary
and confined, alive, alive-oh.
2
Cobbett’s beets, parsnip, peas
in loam, without weeds, not nettles
borage, eaten by Bony’s boys, pigs,
seeds tested in tumbler, found sound,
bound for garden retreat from gates,
sluices against overarched twisted,
silent zeal to circumscribe, imbibe heady
woes of banker toys, rattles, fishy tales
almost gutted, by agency, national trust
in ministers being at least two divisions off,
locating a poker player to take on Gove
and internal stresses, balances of improbability
by encroachment so the beet, as milk, buyers
reduce price to suit their end and rules
of engagement, split our numb politicos,
eurocrats, bureaucrats, selectors of eddy
in free market out of Hades and recall
Hoggart, Williams, Prynne, yes and Hall,
the world brassed off, unified, edged out
in ever decreasing possibilities of literate growth.
3
Cobbett’s laburnum, dogwood, bladder-nut,
proper for shrubberies, this desire to extend
outwards, to walk, contemplate, to sit
to wit woodpeckers, mistletoe, neverblight,
buttery d’or, warrior and stubbard, sweet
and sour, lost varieties, ripped out,
forgotten as gardens, mixed cherry, plum
in Rosie’s delight, venerate cycle, enchanted
plans of forage, avenues, leafy paths, out chipped,
clipped tops in balance of wind break, light quality,
to steal a march on placements at attachment’s
in-bush, nesting’s, the wild met half-way
from compost to composure, these ossified
orchards contracted down to promise, fossils
at a price, reversed by fruit aplenty, water-butt,
hens, rhubarb, a wall, judicious design, not at all
a poor investment in self and general health,
to see the play of light, ingest home grown,
carved initials in wood, gnats, fungi, liverwort,
lichen, polypore, moss in that scarecrow’s head.
4
Cobbett ignored White’s Kalendar and rutted track,
for a moment to breathe, not shoot every bird
or poacher, inclusivity, another land of hands,
nature’s wherewithal, weights and measures,
searing across Georgian retro’s, a stance
of drum-head, sugar loaf, savoy, green and red,
unwritten rules, strained into juicy indices,
word of mouth supports to cottager and black,
vocal losses, species, soils, hide outs tested
from bookish assertions, fine banked spuds,
hot beds, cruciferous forms, largesse of wall,
deep plum puddings, across bland tables,
speaking a fine requisite orchard and hives,
to bless farm hand, spoon and mouth, more
to complete local demands, cursed vagaries
of cold, rain, snow and duds, awkward
questions of franchise, half pursed tenancies,
ill-bred dogs, no coach ways, tunnels, caves,
leaden with brandy, across the old divides,
with no man or woman unhappy with a dibber.
5
Cobbett cut out overt ornament, idiotic
follies, Gothick ruins, Georgian whims built
upon slavery’s back, to lay a plot
stretched, reduced to scale, dug yard deep,
simplified Loudon’s Encyclopaedia,
compost, not farm dung, ashes, chalk, rags
and salt spread in precise, cheap editions,
with Swing rioters far and wide, the self
sufficient away from Marvell’s contemplative
troubles, ha ha’s, strife, contained, creative
for health, improvements, so that the garden
split grew and slew, not reflective, practical
guide to living, much more than the three b’s,
antidote to tithe with plants for tarts,
straw hats, less fashion, grafted, accommodated
birds with powder not shot, irregularity, quirky
diversity in fruit, bread to avoid blight, fright at
idle ground, slugs and wasps dead drunk,
and with a pig, cleared the murky way.
1
Cobbett’s carrots and shallots
in well dug peat and straw
shots in awe forth and back,
to this other place, hung on
ley lines, borders, past hunters
yellow, veined with malt coursing
hares and dogs unrestrained pinned
rosettes in parlour, palms, bays,
differential values in valour, climatic
theist clamour, worldly glazed
porcelain tribes, heated, fixed
ties to runners, cottages, steadying
before sunshine lifts the heaving
virtues of fecundity, furtive looks,
outplaying verdant upskirt
surpassing, bypassing the two sexes
walled-in, mysterious, oval, ovoid
submerged sacred paths, erupted
in bed, patch, no longer solitary
and confined, alive, alive-oh.
2
Cobbett’s beets, parsnip, peas
in loam, without weeds, not nettles
borage, eaten by Bony’s boys, pigs,
seeds tested in tumbler, found sound,
bound for garden retreat from gates,
sluices against overarched twisted,
silent zeal to circumscribe, imbibe heady
woes of banker toys, rattles, fishy tales
almost gutted, by agency, national trust
in ministers being at least two divisions off,
locating a poker player to take on Gove
and internal stresses, balances of improbability
by encroachment so the beet, as milk, buyers
reduce price to suit their end and rules
of engagement, split our numb politicos,
eurocrats, bureaucrats, selectors of eddy
in free market out of Hades and recall
Hoggart, Williams, Prynne, yes and Hall,
the world brassed off, unified, edged out
in ever decreasing possibilities of literate growth.
3
Cobbett’s laburnum, dogwood, bladder-nut,
proper for shrubberies, this desire to extend
outwards, to walk, contemplate, to sit
to wit woodpeckers, mistletoe, neverblight,
buttery d’or, warrior and stubbard, sweet
and sour, lost varieties, ripped out,
forgotten as gardens, mixed cherry, plum
in Rosie’s delight, venerate cycle, enchanted
plans of forage, avenues, leafy paths, out chipped,
clipped tops in balance of wind break, light quality,
to steal a march on placements at attachment’s
in-bush, nesting’s, the wild met half-way
from compost to composure, these ossified
orchards contracted down to promise, fossils
at a price, reversed by fruit aplenty, water-butt,
hens, rhubarb, a wall, judicious design, not at all
a poor investment in self and general health,
to see the play of light, ingest home grown,
carved initials in wood, gnats, fungi, liverwort,
lichen, polypore, moss in that scarecrow’s head.
4
Cobbett ignored White’s Kalendar and rutted track,
for a moment to breathe, not shoot every bird
or poacher, inclusivity, another land of hands,
nature’s wherewithal, weights and measures,
searing across Georgian retro’s, a stance
of drum-head, sugar loaf, savoy, green and red,
unwritten rules, strained into juicy indices,
word of mouth supports to cottager and black,
vocal losses, species, soils, hide outs tested
from bookish assertions, fine banked spuds,
hot beds, cruciferous forms, largesse of wall,
deep plum puddings, across bland tables,
speaking a fine requisite orchard and hives,
to bless farm hand, spoon and mouth, more
to complete local demands, cursed vagaries
of cold, rain, snow and duds, awkward
questions of franchise, half pursed tenancies,
ill-bred dogs, no coach ways, tunnels, caves,
leaden with brandy, across the old divides,
with no man or woman unhappy with a dibber.
5
Cobbett cut out overt ornament, idiotic
follies, Gothick ruins, Georgian whims built
upon slavery’s back, to lay a plot
stretched, reduced to scale, dug yard deep,
simplified Loudon’s Encyclopaedia,
compost, not farm dung, ashes, chalk, rags
and salt spread in precise, cheap editions,
with Swing rioters far and wide, the self
sufficient away from Marvell’s contemplative
troubles, ha ha’s, strife, contained, creative
for health, improvements, so that the garden
split grew and slew, not reflective, practical
guide to living, much more than the three b’s,
antidote to tithe with plants for tarts,
straw hats, less fashion, grafted, accommodated
birds with powder not shot, irregularity, quirky
diversity in fruit, bread to avoid blight, fright at
idle ground, slugs and wasps dead drunk,
and with a pig, cleared the murky way.
