Culm Valley Writers: June 2014

Sunday, 29 June 2014

WW1 Field doctor

Mud

Rats, more mud

Deafening mortar sounds

Ever haunting silence and screaming

Rotting gangrenous smells luring the grim reaper in

a toxic cocktail of fading hope

Dreams of England's green and pleasant land

Farmers, bank clerks doing their duty

Butchers trusted to use their skills to scythe the fetid limbs

Oxygen of respect

We see the same moon

Feel the heat of the same sun

Share the same Christian name

You face impossible choices

I will never contemplate

Like selling my body to eat or

give my father a decent burial

Your small flicker of hope

waiting for the oxygen of respect

When you will stand equal in the world

and in the minds of men

I will never meet you

Or know your grinding face of poverty

Yet I hear your loud knock

On my strong secure Western door

"Trust me," said the Butcher

"Ears flat," said Dad, "then gently backwards."

"Ouch! I can't. OUCH!

"Poor darling," said Mum.

"Bash the rails apart with an 'ammer" said Fred.

"Get the Fire Brigade," said George.

"Sod off," said the boy.

"Leave it to me," said the butcher, raising his cleaver. "I'll sort it. Trust me."

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved

Trust me

'Trust me' said the Butcher,

As he sharpened his best knife.

‘This’ll only hurt a whisker,

And you'll thank me all your life.'

We hid behind the chitterlings,

Looking on with fear and dread,

Barely hiding our own jitterings,

As the butcher laid him dead.

Monday, 16 June 2014

The Cleaver Cobham Players present the mad, comic opera, ‘Pusher’ (not recommended for minors)

I know Thursday night is traditionally billed as 'Mistakes Night',

with most of the cast coming on late, drunk, half-dressed, or a combination of all three;

but Bill Weston, come the first performance, entered stage left - not right -

bearing a syringe, whispering, with some menace,

“Trust me, I’m a butcher!”

Saturday, 14 June 2014

Madeline does what she pleases,
won’t say ‘pardon’ when she sneezes,
calls the others horrid names,
and nearly always cheats at games.

Now you may think that she’s OK,
even admire her in a way,
but let me whisper in your ear
a little secret, daughter dear,
all her bravado’s just for show,
she hasn’t any friends, you know.

Predator

‘Trust me,’ said the butcher bird

(formally known as the shrike)
‘It’s a lovely day, do come out to play.
We could go for a flight or a hike.’

But the little vole stayed in her hole
and would not take his word.
She could see his sharp claws and his fearsome beak
and had heard of this butchering bird.
For along the hedge where the thicket runs deep
his food store was fixed on a spike
and her sweet cousin, Joan had not returned home
from the junket on Saturday night.

‘I thank you,’ she said, ‘and I wish you good day.
Now, please, just hop it and fly right away.
I cannot be friends with a shrike!’

© Gill Dunstan
All rights reserved

The new word butcher

‘Trust me’ said rubicund Ruben,

Trussed in navy-white apron, cleaver at the ready,

‘I’ll prepare you a nice bit of verbage’.

‘Cholerically boned and rolled brisket,

an eyeballing sausage,

or a flexitarian kebab?’

‘Chined and scored bonus genius,

smoked authorhood,

or upcycled thighs?’

But I recommend the barbecued bloatware!

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Trust me: I´m a Butcher

“Trust me:

I´m a butcher,”

Said the bloodless looking

Young man in a blue striped apron,

Cleaving,

As he

Did so, the ring

Finger from his left hand:

Not so bloodless after all I

Noticed.

The Psychopath

I recognised you as part of me,

I saw it in your eyes.

I know how to fill your heart with happiness.

I know how to split your heart in pieces

and put it together again in the way I want.

Trust me, I am a butcher of emotions.

Culm Valley Writers

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