The Crow Bar
"The Crow Bar"
she said,
here I bury my dead,
you can hear them sleeping
somnulent forget-me-nots,
snoring blithely unaware,
in neat rows between
the thick,
ink injected lines,
their soiled lives
ploughed and
turned over
replanted
sunnyside down
expunged and
wrung out
eventually,
not totally oblivious,
they are found
6 feet under
masonary slabs,
light weights
all grey rocked,
the prescription
inscripted, chiselled
as an afterthought,
swiftly in cursive memories,
"too patient and considerate, this 1,
holding court", the wokes a wake,
The Crow Bar
2 in hand, after eating,
then up the dosage,
for Minsky jail birds,
and other island hopping soaks,
those blood sucking vampires
the sharp silver, piercing
stitched up voodoo dolls,
the arresting spells cast,
convicting, done,
way too over-easy,
the carnivourous gluttons,
camouflaged imposters posing,
the mendacious stance
of a barrenless child thief
spreading lilac love tossed
like celebratory confetti
over their misinformed
flying monkeys
and all the dream catchers
dashing crushed souls
on the rocks, trolls straddled
and broke, acid washed,
reclining in their lazy
banana boats elucidating
to their empty chair companions,
just toothless saltwater crocs,
disadvantaged receivers
disenfranchised,
all at a loss;
gummy bears
chewed slowly
sweet jelly babies
lost for words
I could make of it
something versatile
and pretty, but the wreaths
like barbed-wired crowns
around prancing unicorn necks
are too taught and momentarily,
I consider, using the ties that bind,
for skipping ropes, or
a primary school game of elastics
tied from one tree to the next,
Yews, not oaks,
the leaves boiling and
dried out, turning
like pages of peyote,
speaking tongues
the reader cannot hear,
but takes in like a
consecrated wafer just the same,
drugged stories of ayahuasca,
some nice spiritual portent
all in their double D-Day cups
small revelations,
steeped head first, dead,
played and strung,
feet sky up -
wicked, I know,
ricochetting them
with harsh wingless bat
one after the other,
field flying like
Wrigley baseballs
across the poetic
parking lot;
some come
and some go
baptised in ego,
swallowing
their cocktails,
a mouthful of the
devil's urine and ruffled
feathers slightly shaken
but not stirred,
the novitiate poetry
makes them choke,
the smokescreen greased
their windscreen wiper eyes,
parlaying what is indirectly
direct in front of them,
they soo-ee like a squealing pig
at the reprobates' rodeo,
pistol whipped gauche,
mine's bigger than yours
red-necked duelling banjoes,
they stand and deliver
yodelling on their
soap boxes gasolined
to the gills waiting
to be relieved
in the ecstacy of
vaccuous surrender
swallowing their
brake fluid...
I smile, it’s an
entertaining thought,
I know,
full stop.
humour,
is a good thing,
this over time,
through the best,
I was taught
holding court
for love openers
bombing their torts,
idle tutors, begging for
a gentle exorcising, on their
Dolos dappled hobby horses
apprentices lackadaisically stroking
their Prometheus whips
up and down the vaselined glow
of their kingdom come halls,
questioning their trusted
Pseudea companions,
buried sinners, their own
matyred hung saviours,
demanding some kind relief;
a shout all round
drink up
silent applause
ghosted gauntlets down
the keys thrown
The Crow Bar
caught
Love-all.
No police.
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
caught.
Court.
"Yew is the Tree of the Dead, used in rituals of summoning spirits, restoring life, and even in the foul practices of raising corpses and creating undead servants. Wands and other tools made from yew wood are particularly common between necromancers and those who wish to commune with the spirits of the dead. Planted at graveyards, it creates natural places of gathering for lost souls, keeping them from wandering freely in the area. Yews often accompany places of worship as a reminder of eternal life."
"The Yew came to symbolise death and resurrection in Celtic culture.
The Celts will also have been familiar with the toxicity of the tree’s needles in particular. This may have further contributed to its connections with death. Shakespeare was familiar with these qualities when he had Macbeth concoct a poisonous brew. The deadly drink included “slips of yew, silvered in the moon’s eclipse.
The themes of death and resurrection continued into the Christian era. People buried yew shoots with the deceased, and used boughs of yew as ‘Palms’ in church at Easter."
"The Yew plant is a shrub with evergreen-like leaves. Yew poisoning occurs when someone eats pieces of this plant. The plant is most poisonous in Winter. All parts of yew are deadly poisonous, except for the flesh of the berry.
The yew tree (Taxus baccata) and a related species common to gardeners, Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata) is known to be one of the most poisonous woody plants in the world, with all components of the tree, excepting the fleshy red part of the berry containing lethal amounts of taxine, a toxic alkaloid found in the yew."
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