Wild child,
I loved you too well
and now you are so fiery electric
that you hate, bait, torment
and flare against your maternal lineage.
Her lot it was to plot and plan,
she had to marry beneath us both –
to save us girl. To save us!
We were both plunged too deep into this closet of we.
Blood had to be shed, energy spent,
and death smeared upon these steps
this gateway of our sequestered home;
for no habitat can withstand
a child that loves her father above all else
when the world waits to cross pollinate,
always
for something, someone else.
Peter the Pumpkin went walking one night
When Samantha the Squash strolled past
Peter was smitten, it was love at first sight
"Will you marry me now?" He asked
They ran to Patch Hall like frolicking pups
Judge Winnie the Witch performed rites
"Any veggie who objects, speak now or shut-up!
I pronounce you pumpkin and wife"
Gossip spread in the patch as events unfolded
Artichokes choked and sweet onions cried
Cucumbers clambered and scallions scolded
"Outrageous! They both should be fried!"
Sam's momma fainted, Pete's papa condemned
His shell was quivering with rage
"An inter-gourd marriage? Over my dead stem!
I'll beet your rind-end, you're underage!"
So they fled to Farmer Joe's fruit tree estate
(They're a bit more liberal, you see)
"Hey, what's the big deal? We cross-pollinate!
Sit down, have some compost, feel free!"
"Joe will hoe you a quaint little fertilized bed
There's plenty of space here to grow"
So they put down their roots and quickly cross-bred
Two dozen young Squashkins in a row
Swirled in the majesty of springtime dust,
Infused recombinant DNA,
Genetically modified dandelion clocks
On the breeze are borne far away.
Super-weeds with strangling intentions
To spread from estate to estate,
Mutated betrothals with arable death,
To marry the wheat and cross-pollinate.
Where the pylons stride like steel goliaths
With power surging their cable veins,
Leaking down raw electricity
To grow tumours in bovine brains.
Beneath the grass drones a throb and hiss
That pulses through the shifting soil,
From a buried drum of chemical waste
Moving slowly to the boil.
In the wormholes underneath the turf,
Radioactive, deep and seldom seen,
The worms are getting set to turn,
All big and bright and glowing green.
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